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NAPOLEON 





I. 



II. 



THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE. 



These are enlarged reproductions of originals in the author's 

possession; the actual diameter is 13 mil. They were 

generally struck in gold, silver, and bronze, 

and were used for throwing broadcast 

among the people or soldiers. 

I. — Struck during the Consulate, in 1803, just before the 
rupture of the peace with England. The legend, Arme 
pour la paix, armed for peace^ is suggestive. 



II. — The last medal bearing the effigy of Napoleon struck 
under the Empire; to commemorate the Champ de Mai, 
eighteen days before Waterloo. 



Napoleon 



A SHORT 
BIOGRAPHY 



By R. M. Johnston 

Author of "The Roman Theocracy 
and the Republic, 1846 -1849" 




NEW YORK 

A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 

MCMIV /^^^ 



LiBRaRv .,f CONGRESS 
Tw4f Copies. Received 

FEB 27 1904 

(-, Copyright Entry 
CLASS O. XXc. No, 



^ 



^''■\,^ 






^ 



Copyrighty igo4 
By a. S. Barnes and Company 

Published February, 1904 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 

THIS book is intended to present to the 
reader in the most concise form pos- 
sible, but yet with historical accuracy, 
an outline of the history of Napoleon that will 
convey an adequate first impression of his 
genius and policy. Without some knowledge 
of this extraordinary man and of his period it 
is impossible to understand the politics, consti- 
tution, and general circumstances of modern 
Europe. But the literature of the Napoleonic 
period is so vast, probably approaching forty 
thousand books, that the reader who feels dis- 
posed to get some acquaintance with it is 
frequently unable to find a practicable way 
through the maze. It may be said without 
disparagement to their writers that any one 
of the three or four best general histories of 
Napoleon, taken alone, is inadequate to con- 
vey a sufiicient impression of the man and 
his times. But to Napoleonic literature as 
a whole there is no key; a complete bibliog- 
raphy is so vast an undertaking that even 
the labours of Baron Lumbroso and Herr 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

Kircheisen appear to offer little promise of 
completion. The latter's select bibliography 
is the best available guide ; but however valu- 
able for the student, some two hundred pages 
of bare bibliographical entries cannot be of 
great service to those not possessing some 
previously acquired knowledge. It is part of 
the purpose of the present work to enable 
the ordinary reader or the would-be student 
safely to take a few first steps in Napoleonic 
literature, avoiding the innumerable books of 
little or no authority and getting some sort 
of notion beforehand of what those here rec- 
ommended are likely to give him.^ 

As to the narrative itself the desire to attain 
conciseness combined with true proportion pre- 
sents difficulties and disadvantages, results in 
unavoidable gaps. Thus no attempt can be 
made to present the numerous military opera- 
tions of Napoleon on the same scale. Certain 
campaigns and battles, — Wagram, Austerlitz, 
Waterloo, for instance, — have been treated 
more fully as being of special importance 
politically or strategically; others have been 
passed over with a bare mention, though not 
without due consideration for the clearness 

1 As to the selection of books see also the remarks in the 
note to Chapter I. 



PREFACE ix 

and continuity of the narrative. Where details 
and anecdotes have been brought in it has 
invariably been for the purpose of illustrating 
broad issues. 

To furnish a correct outline of Napoleonic 
history and to point the way along which it 
may be profitably pursued, that, and nothing 
more, is what this book aims at effecting. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. Napoleon before the Revolution .... i 

Birth and Childhood — Education — Appearance and Char- 
acter — The Revolution. 

II. Toulon and Vendemiaire 14 

Bonaparte and Corsica — Siege of Toulon — The Terror — 
Vendemiaire — Marriage of Napoleon and Josephine Beau- 
harnais — Army of Italy — Tactics and Strategy in 1796. 

III. The Campaign of Italy, i 796-1 797 .... 27 

Montenotte — Armistice of Cherasco — Crossing of the Po 
— Lodi — Le petit caforal — Entrance into Milan — Casti- 
glione and Lonato — Bassano — Areola — Rivoli — Fall of 
Mantua. 

IV. Campo Formio and Egypt 41 

Armistice of Leoben — Fall of Venice — Peace of Campo 
Formio — Methods of the French Armies, and of Bonaparte, 
his relations with the Directoire — The Eastern question — 
Expedition to Egypt — Capture of Malta — Battle of the 
Nile — Campaigns in Egypt and Syria — Return to France. 



59 



V. The i8th of Brumaire 

French Policy and Disasters — Sieyes — Nov! and Zurich 
— Landing of Bonaparte — His Attitude — Episode with 
Josephine — Conspiracy — Bonaparte appointed to com- 
mand Troops in Paris— Fall of the Directoire. 

VI. The 19TH OF Brumaire and Marengo ... 71 

Scenes at St. Cloud — Formation of the new Government — 
External Affairs — The Army of Reserve — Plans of Cam- 
paign — Passage of the Alps — Marengo — Triumph of 
Bonaparte. 



xii CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

VII. Legislation and Administration .... 88 

The Consular Constitution — Bonaparte secures a Dictator- 
ship — Plebiscites — Legal Reform — Influence an d_ Work 
of Bonaparte — The Napoleonic Bureaucracy — Religious 
Questions — Death of Washington — The Press — Royalist 
Overtures. 

VIII. The Dug d'Enghien and Trafalgar . . . 103 

Conspiracies — The Bonaparte family — Moreau — Im- 
perial Aspirations — The Due d'Enghien — Proclamation 
of the Empire— War with England — The Trafalgar 
Campaign. 

IX. AUSTERLITZ 119 

Ulm — A Proclamation of Napoleon — Occupation of 
Vienna — Austerlitz — Peace of Preseburg. 

X. Jena and Friedland 130 

War with Prussia — Jena — Murat's March to Lubeck — 
Eylau — Friedland. 

XL Napoleonic Policy. 1806- 1808 . . . . . 142 

Napoleon's Ambition — Fall of the Germanic Empire — 
War and Finance — Tilsit -- Commercial War on Eng- 
land — Copenhagen — Junot occupies Lisbon — Con- ""^^ 
tinental Policy — Spanish Intrigue — Occupation of 
Madrid — Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain. 

XII. Wagram 157 

Austrian Jealousy — French Discontent — Napoleon 
leaves Spain — War with Austria — Aspern and Essling 
— Dispossession of the Pope — Wagram — Peace. 

XIII. The Austrian Marriage and the Campaign 

of Russia 170 

Dynastic Question — Napoleon marries Maria Louisa — 
Jealousy of Russia — Causes for War — Preparations — 
Campaign of Russia — Borodino — Moscow — The 
Retreat. 



CONTENTS xiii 

Chapter Page 

XIV. The Struggle FOR Germany AND Italy. 1813 189 

Effects of the Russian Catastrophe — Lutzen and Bautzen 
— Austrian Intervention — Dresden — Leipzig — Murat 
and Italy. 

XV. The Campaign of France 198 

Napoleon's last Defence — St. Dizier — Brienne — La 
Rothiere — Montmirail — Laon — Chatillon — Fall of 
Paris — Abdication — The Final Scene at Fontainebleau. 

XVI. Elba 210 

Return of the Bourbons — Congress of Vienna — French 
Dissatisfaction — Napoleon leaves Elba — His progress to 
Paris — Changed Situation — Attitude of the Powers — 
Champ de Mai. 

XVII. Waterloo and St. Helena 223 

Plan of Campaign — Ligny — March on Brussels — 
Waterloo — Second Abdication — St. Helena — Death of 
Napoleon. 

Appendix — Bonaparte Family 239 

Index » 241 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Napoleonic Medals Frontispiece 

MAPS. To face page 
Campaign of Italy 28 

The Quadrilateral 34 

The Swiss base, 1800 ' 80 

Austerlitz 124 

Wagram 164 

The French Empire after Wagram 170 

Campaign of Germany, 1813 190 

Campaign of France, 18 14 198 

Position at nightfall, June 17, 1 81 5 224 



NAPOLEON 

CHAPTER I 

NAPOLEON BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

Birth and Childhood — -Education — Appearance and Character 
— The Revolution. 

IN the history of Napoleon Bonaparte we 
plunge into the characteristic at the very 
outset, — the date of his birth. He was 
born either in 1768 or 1769; probably, but not 
certainly, in the latter year. As late as in 
1796, when he married, the date of his birth 
was given as February 1 768 ; later it was 
fixed at the 15th of August 1769. This is 
not a matter of vital importance, yet it is not 
without interest, for two reasons. In the first 
place, it is typical of Napoleon's methods that 
he should have placed the celebration of his 
birthday at the same date as that of the Vir- 
gin Mary's, which is one associated with rejoic- 
ing and merry-making in all Latin countries. 
Another interesting point in this connection 
is that in 1768 the island of Corsica, the home 
of the Bonapartes, was Genoese ; a year later 

X 



2 NAPOLEON 

it was French. If Napoleon was born in 
1768, he was born a Genoese; if in 1769, a 
Frenchman. 

However this may be, and the point has 
been the subject of some controversy, it is 
certain that all the circumstances of his birth 
and youth left him nearly devoid of what 
might be described as national traditions or 
feeling, though in his boyhood he was in- 
tensely Corsican. The Bonapartes were a 
noble but poor family of Italian extraction, 
settled at Ajaccio, where Charles Bonaparte, — 
Napoleon's father, — exercised legal functions 
under the Genoese government. He took part 
in the civil wars that preceded Napoleon's 
birth, in which Paoli became prominent. The 
Corsican disorders need not be related here. 
It will suffice to say that Charles Bonaparte 
transferred his allegiance to France in 1769, 
when the sovereignty of the island was aban- 
doned by the Genoese. Yet by race neither he 
nor his son was a Frenchman. The Genoese 
were a maritime people. Their home was 
the Mediterranean. Their standards had been 
carried in triumph at various periods from the 
Strait of Gibraltar to the Bosphorus and Con- 
stantinople. This is worthy of note, for the boy 
brought up in the Genoese atmosphere and 



BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 3 

traditions who became Emperor of the French 
had for many years his eyes and his policy 
constantly fixed on the Mediterranean. At 
every stage of his career we find that great 
inland sea, around which our civilization took 
its earliest shape, playing an all-important 
part. Napoleon first crossed it in the year 
1779 when his father succeeded in securing 
his appointment to a free cadetship at the 
military school of Brienne. 

Young Bonaparte's school days were not very 
remarkable. His ignorance of the French lan- 
guage, his lack of fine clothes and fine manners, 
his innate pride and aloofness, kept him solitary. 
He did not shine in arts and literature, but 
showed conspicuous ability and quickness in 
mathematics and geometry. In one other 
respect he impressed several of his teachers, 
and that was with his strong and domineering 
temperament. In 1784 he was transferred from 
Brienne to the military academy at Paris, and 
no sooner was he there than he revealed his 
force of character even more strongly by draw- 
ing up a memorandum exposing the numerous 
shortcomings of the establishment as a military 
training school, and setting out a scheme for 
its reformation. This did not tend to make 
the fifteen-year-old Corsican popular with those 



4 NAPOLEON 

placed over him ; how little could they then 
foresee that he was fated to carry out this and 
many other even more important reforms within 
a very few years ! He spent only twelve months 
in Paris, and then received his commission as 
a sublieutenant of artillery. Three years later 
the French Revolution broke out, and in ten 
years more the Corsican sublieutenant of artil- 
lery was the ruler of France. What were the 
causes that brought about this wonderful rise 
of fortune ? Chiefly two : the extraordinary 
character of the man ; the extraordinary char- 
acter of the circumstances into which he was 
thrown. Had not those two great factors co- 
incided with such precision, it is quite safe to 
assume that European history would be with- 
out what is perhaps its most wonderful page. 
It is therefore important, before we go further, 
to consider the personality of Napoleon, after 
which a brief view of the origin of the French 
Revolution must be taken ; this will lead us 
to the events in which the Revolution and the 
man who was destined to be its heir were both 
concerned. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was a short, dark, 
swarthy man, of typically southern appearance. 
In his early years, until 1805, he was extremely 
thin; it was not until his face filled out that 



BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 5 

his features could be pronounced handsome, 
though his nose was salient and mouth well 
formed. His hands and feet, like those of his 
brothers and sisters, were beautifully modelled. 
His head was large, full, and intellectual, but 
what produced the greatest impression on all 
who met him was the brilliancy and imperious- 
ness of his steel-blue eyes; they revealed the 
volcanic energy of the soul beneath. He was 
given to violent bursts of temper, the occasional 
outbreaks of a nearly superhuman mental energy 
and of a temperament easily swayed to passion 
by personal and selfish considerations. He 
was perhaps the greatest egotist the world has 
ever seen, with the result that he often applied 
his indomitable will and magnificent qualities 
to very low aims. Judged hastily and by certain 
traits alone, he might be thought to be little 
more than contemptible, — thus, in the matter 
of veracity. He viewed lying from a strictly 
utilitarian point of view, and always said just 
what was convenient, so that his history written 
from his own statements would be little better 
than fiction. He played cards as he conducted 
warfare, obtaining every advantage he could, 
legitimate or otherwise. Yet he cannot be 
called a small man, only a man with small 
aspects, and if he won by his cheating at cards, 



6 NAPOLEON 

he always returned the stakes after the game 
was over. When found out in his perversions 
of truth he was prepared to own up. On one 
occasion Metternich stoutly declined to believe 
some information published in the Moniteur, 
and at last Napoleon laughed and confessed: 
" Sono bugie per i Parigini, they are lies for 
the Parisians I " Alongside of this trait was a 
wonderful largeness of perception ; and many, 
in fact, have said that it was Napoleon's breadth 
of view that constituted his genius. It was not 
so much that as the perfect combination of 
breadth of view with attention to the most 
minute detail. His powerful imagination made 
him see events in their fullest possible exten- 
sion ; as he said himself, he was always living 
two years ahead. At the same time his instinct 
for detail was the nightmare of every colonel in 
the army, of every functionary in the Empire ; 
the memoirs of the period are full of anecdotes 
illustrating this. Philippe de Segur relates 
that he was sent on a tour of inspection in 
which he visited several fortresses, many camps 
and forts, and numberless earthworks and bat- 
teries. On his reporting to the Emperor, he 
was cross-examined at great length, but went 
through the ordeal with flying colours until at 
last asked whether at a particular spot on a 



BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 7 

small cross-road not far from Antwerp two 
field-pieces were still in position ! 

The brain of Napoleon was like a machine, 
so perfect, so accurate in its working; but the 
spirit that impelled it was that of a soldier and 
a gambler. Logical perception of chances was 
instantaneous with him, and promptly turned 
into action with perfect audacity and relentless 
activity. It was among his soldiers that he 
was happiest, and few anecdotes told of him 
are more characteristic than that related in the 
memoirs of a Polish officer who served in the 
campaign of Russia. Napoleon had just joined 
headquarters after three years of peace, and 
was in the midst of the numerous columns 
converging on the points at which the Russian 
frontier was to be crossed. In the middle of 
the night the officers of the staff were awak- 
ened by an unusual noise. Napoleon was 
sleepless, and was tramping up and down his 
bedroom singing at the top of his voice the 
revolutionary marching song, Le chant du 
depart I He was happy once more, he was 
playing the biggest stake of his life, with the 
biggest army he had ever assembled ; it was 
the satisfaction of the roulette player sitting 
down at his accustomed chair with a large 
pile of gold in front of him. But there are 



8 NAPOLEON 

yet other aspects of the character of this the 
most extraordinary man of modern times that 
must not be omitted in attempting to portray 
him. 

Making exception of the rhetoric he so fre- 
quently used in addressing his soldiers and 
occasionally in his diplomatic relations, his cor- 
respondence constitutes a wonderful intellectual 
achievement. In the thirty-two volumes pub- 
lished officially one might nearly say that there 
is not a superfluous word, not an embellish- 
ment. Conciseness, energy, decision, perception, 
stand out with overpowering force from every 
page ; and it may quite properly be said that 
the correspondence of Napoleon is a great 
literary monument. It is safe to predict that 
it will be read when the names of Chateau- 
briand, of Delavigne, and of Lamartine are well- 
nigh forgotten. 

His bombast has been alluded to. However 
distasteful to Anglo-Saxon ears, it often enough 
produced its due results : inspired his soldiers, 
terrified his enemies. In nothing was Napoleon 
more an Italian than in his strong dramatic 
sense, and his public life, from the moment he 
got his foot on the first rung of the ladder of 
ambition, was one long pose. He did his best 
to create, and to send down to posterity, the 



BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 9 

Napoleonic legend ; and even at the present day, 
when more reasonable views are beginning to 
prevail, there are many, even among staid his- 
torians, who are prepared to accept him at his 
own valuation. Before closing this brief sketch 
of his personality, it may be as well to add that 
a view that seems becoming popular in some 
quarters at the present day, — the view that 
Napoleon was an epileptic, — reposes on very 
slight evidence. It is possible, just as many 
other hypotheses are, but on the other hand it 
is certain, if this theory is accepted, that he 
was a very slight sufferer, and that no epilep- 
tic ever showed greater clearness of intellect. 
Historically speaking, to say that Napoleon 
was epileptic is probably untrue, and is cer- 
tainly irrelevant and misleading. 

Here, then, in the year 1789, was a young 
sublieutenant of artillery from whom great 
things might be expected. Yet had not his 
path crossed that of a great political cataclysm, 
it is certain that he would never have found the 
opportunities that enabled him to rise to the 
level of his genius. 

The misgovernment and ineptitude of the 
Bourbons had at last been visited with retribu- 
tion. Although France was fast increasing in 
wealth, more than half her people knew the 



lo NAPOLEON 

pangs of famine, many had died of hunger. 
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, 
Diderot, d'Alembert, had stirred the reason of 
the thinking class. France had within her all 
the makings of a great modern nation, as was 
conclusively demonstrated by Napoleon ten 
years later; yet she was degraded by such bar- 
barities as the mutilation and execution of the 
Chevalier de La Barre, or the attempt to pre- 
vent the burial of Voltaire's body; she was 
brought to bankruptcy by the criminal folly 
of the court and its ministers. Retribution 
followed, the Revolution broke out, and reac- 
tion swung far in the direction of popular 
absurdities and horrors. From 1789 to 1794 
the complete scale of democratic passions was 
exhausted. The most excellent reforming zeal, 
the most exalted sentiments of patriotism and 
disinterestedness, caught in a rising tide, hur- 
ried into a whirl of political disintegration, 
finally disappeared or made way for mob rule, 
violence, terrorism, suspicion, and anarchy. 
While in the cities the Revolution gradually 
fell into the hands of gangs of political fanatics 
or unprincipled ruffians, its best elements found 
refuge in the armies of the assailed Republic. 
Birth was no longer essential for becoming an 
officer, and great soldiers like Ney, Massena, 



BEFORE THE REVOLUTION ii 

or Murat, found their path no longer stopped 
at the rank of sergeant; court favour no 
longer made generals, and a Bonaparte might 
expect to rise above all his fellows. His first 
opportunity came in 1793, at the siege of 
Toulon, but before coming to that it will be 
as well briefly to indicate what had occurred 
previously and since Bonaparte had entered 
the army. 







CHRONOLOGY 




1261. 


Earliest Bonaparte at Florence. 




1529. 


Bonapartes go to Corsica. 


15 Aug., 


1769. 


Napoleon Bonaparte born. 


April, 


1779. 


He goes to school at Brienne. 


Oct., 


1784. 


Proceeds to military academy, Paris. 


Aug., 


1785. 


Sublieutenant of artillery. 


14 July, 


1789. 


Capture of the Bastille. — French Revo- 
lution. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General Histories. — Among the nu- 
merous general histories of Napoleon the following are best 
to consult: Lanfrey, Histoire de Napoleon, Paris, 1875, 
5 vols, (unfinished and hostile), also English translation; 
Rose, Life of Napoleon /., London, 1902, 2 vols. (English 
point of view) ; Fournier, Napoleon /., Leipzig, 1886, 
3 vols., also English translation, New York, 1903 (Con- 



12 NAPOLEON 

tinental point of view and good bibliography). For illus- 
trations, but not matter, see Dayot, Napoleon raconte par 
V image y Paris, 1894; Tarbell, Short Life of Napoleon, 
New York, 1895 ; Sloane, Napoleon, New York, 1896 (but 
contains many fancy pictures) ; for coins and medals see 
Delaroche, Tresor de numismatique, Paris, 1832 j for bibli- 
ography see Kircheisen, Bibliographie Napoleon'' s, I^eipzig, 
1902. 

Memoirs of the Napoleonic period are numerous and 
generally not very trustworthy; they convey, however, a 
local colour that no history does, and no real impression of 
the epoch can be gained without reading into them. 
As a first instalment Madame Junot, Marbot, and Sir 
Robert Wilson might be recommended ; the reader wish- 
ing to go further could then choose among the following : 
Bourrienne, Thi^bault, Le Normand, Pasquier, Meneval, 
Segur, B. Jackson, Bausset, Cavaignac {Memoir es d^une 
inconnue), Remusat, and Durand; Talleyrand is dis- 
appointing, Metternich voluminous and a little difficult. 
Other memoirs will be mentioned for particular subjects at 
the end of later chapters. 

It must be understood that these notes are only designed 
to cover a limited field; they are intended to serve as an 
introduction to Napoleonic literature, nothing more. This 
will explain why no reference is here made to such works 
as, for instance, the Correspondence of Napoleon, the 
Memoirs of King Joseph, or the works of Roederer. 

For the preceding chapter the following may be con- 
sulted : On the youth of Napoleon : Chuquet, La jeunesse 
de Napoleon, Paris, 1899 ; Jung, Bonaparte et son temps, 
Paris, 1883, 3 vols.; Bourrienne, Memoires, Paris, 1830, 
10 vols. On his father, mother, and family : Masson, 
Napoleon etsafamille, Paris, 1897 (also Napoleon inconnii)\ 



BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 13 

Nasica, Memoires sur Penfance . . , de Napoleon, Paris, 
1852; Larrey, Madaffie Mere, Paris, 1892, 2 vols. For 
the character and appearance of Napoleon a reference to 
nearly all the memoirs of the period would be necessary ; 
the most brilliant portrait by any modern writer, though 
overdrawn, is that of Taine in Les origines de la France 
Conteinporaine ; the thirteenth chapter. Vol. III., of Bour- 
rienne's Memoirs (see above) should always be consulted 
on this point. 



CHAPTER II 

TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE 

Bonaparte and Corsica — Siege of Toulon — the Terror — 
Venddmiaire — Marriage of Napoleon and Josephine Beau- 
harnais — Army of Italy — Tactics and Strategy in 1796. 

FROM 1789 until 1793, during, that is, the 
first four years of the Revolution, Bona- 
parte was striving to improve his pros- 
pects in connection with Corsican affairs. He 
paid several visits to the island, joined the 
French democratic party, but could not suc- 
ceed either in securing the victory of that 
party at Ajaccio, or in bringing to a favourable 
end a small military expedition he led into 
Sardinia. In the course of these intrigues and 
proceedings we catch an interesting glimpse of 
him noted by his school friend Bourrienne dur- 
ing a short stay in Paris. 

The young Corsican officer, whose watch 
was in pawn and whose dinners were generally 
provided by his friends, saw among other sights, 
the march of a mob of five hundred men to the 
Tuileries, and Louis XVI. complying to their 

14 



TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE 15 

orders by appearing at a window wearing a red 
Phrygian cap. Bonaparte was deeply moved 
at this spectacle, and declared with indigna- 
tion that with a couple of guns he could have 
dispersed all this scum of the faubourgs and 
taught them a lesson they would never have 
forgotten. 

The doings of Bonaparte at this period have 
no large bearing on history and are in part 
somewhat obscure. But after the final failure 
of the French party in Corsica he returned to 
his occupation as an ofificer of artillery, serving 
now in the rank of captain (1793). In August 
of the same year the French Republic, assailed 
on every side, received a severe blow by the in- 
habitants of Toulon proclaiming the King and 
calling to their help an Anglo-Spanish fleet. 

The government immediately sent troops to 
attempt the recapture of the fortress, and Bona- 
parte found himself in command of the small 
force of artillery collected. His skill and judg- 
ment quickly won recognition, and he was 
soon promoted to the functions of a lieutenant- 
colonel. His energy made feasible the only 
plan that promised success. It consisted in 
capturing one of the English positions, the 
fort de rEguillette, whence the bay and ship- 
ping could be commanded. Bonaparte pressed 



i6 NAPOLEON 

forward the work, but the British fire was 
severe and the guns of his battery were si- 
lenced. He then had recourse to his knowl- 
edge of human nature and of the French 
soldier. A large sign was posted : This is the 
battery of the men without fear, and a call was 
made for volunteers. This was well responded 
to, some severe fighting ensued, finally the 
British position was breached and stormed. 
As Bonaparte had foreseen, this success of the 
French entailed the immediate evacuation of 
Toulon by the Anglo-Spanish forces. Thus 
Bonaparte won his first reputation, and before 
many months passed his services were recog- 
nised by promotion to the rank of a brigadier- 
general. 

It was at the period we have now reached 
that the Revolution attained its extreme of vio- 
lence. The government of France had been 
seized by the Jacobin Club and Robespierre. 
An enthusiastic conformity to their doctrines 
appeared the only means of escaping the guil- 
lotine. Bonaparte, like nearly every other of- 
ficer of the French army, made show of zeal 
in support of the Terrorists, and was during 
some months on close terms with Robespierre 
Jeune. But in Thermidor (July) 1794, the 
Jacobin tyranny was broken, and in the reac- 



TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE 17 

tion that followed Bonaparte was for a few 
weeks placed under arrest. After his release, 
having thrown up his command in the south- 
ern army, he went to Paris where he probably 
hoped to find some opportunity of advancement 
in the turmoil of politics. That opportunity 
was slow in coming, but he refused the com- 
mand of a brigade of infantry in the army of 
the West rather than leave the capital. At 
last, in the autumn of 1795, events took place 
that marked his first step forward in the politi- 
cal world. Since the fall of Robespierre in 
1794 a strong movement of reaction had taken 
place in the capital, partly royalist, wholly con- 
servative. Most of the Sections of Paris were 
hostile to the Convention, which aimed at re- 
taining power under a newly framed constitu- 
tion ; and as each Section had its battalion of 
national guards, the movement soon took an 
insurrectional and menacing aspect. The ex- 
ecutive power of the Republic was now vested 
in a committee of five, — the Directoire, — 
among the members of which was Barras, 
who, as a representative of the government, 
had known Bonaparte at Toulon and had been 
struck by his talents. 

In the last days of September 1795, the 
movement of the Sections became more pro- 



i8 NAPOLEON 

nounced, the symptoms of an appjjQaching 
storm more clear, and the Convention charged 
Barras with its defence and with the command 
of all the troops in Paris. But Barras.cwas a 
civilian and needed military assistance. He 
therefore called to his aid several generals then 
in the capital ; among them was Bonaparte, 
who accepted, though not without hesitation ; 
his personality, his decision and promptitude 
completely turned the scale. 

At this point we may pause for one moment 
to recall an anecdote of those days that is emi- 
nently characteristic of the man. Thiebault, 
a young officer, reported at headquarters, and 
found the newly appointed general seated at 
a table in conversation. He appeared small, 
of poor physique, with long, lanky hair and a 
shabby uniform. He was asking questions of 
the most elementary character of officers of 
far greater experience and seniority in mili- 
tary administration. There was an inclina- 
tion among some of those present to smile at 
the ignorance displayed by the newcomer, but 
Thiebault admired his complete absence of 
false pride, the searching character of his 
inquiries, and the rapidity with which he 
appeared to assimilate the information he ac- 
quired. The officers placed under his com- 



TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE 19 

mand were certainly not inclined to think 
lightly of him for long. On the 13th of 
Vendemiaire the revolt came to a head, and 
the Sections prepared to march against the 
Assembly. Bonaparte seized all the available 
artillery, owing to the promptitude of a major 
of cavalry, Murat by name. The few thousand 
troops available were concentrated about the 
Tuileries, and as soon as the national guards 
began their movement, Bonaparte opened with 
grape along the streets leading to his central 
position. There w^as considerable bloodshed, 
but the insurrection collapsed immediately, as 
must all insurrections treated in that prompt 
and uncompromising way. 

Bonaparte's second successful demonstration 
of his knowledge of the theory and practice of 
artillery received large recognition, for he was 
shortly afterwards appointed to the command 
of the army of the Interior. He w^as now a 
rising man in the State, and for this reason 
succeeded in winning the hand of a lady of 
rank and beauty to whom he had been paying 
his attentions for some months. Josephine 
Tascher de La Pagerie was a beautiful Creole 
who had married the Vicomte de Beauharnais, 
an officer in the French service, by whom 
she had two children, Eugene and Hortense. 



20 NAPOLEON 

Beauharnais fought for the Republic, was un- 
successful, and went to the guillotine one of 
the last victims of the Reign of Terror. His 
widow became one of the beauties of the new 
fashionable society that centred about the dis- 
sipated Barras and his wife. Whether she 
loved Bonaparte is very doubtful, but it is 
clear that she felt his magnetic power, and 
when it was decided that he was to have the 
command of one of the armies on the frontier, 
she married him. The marriage took place 
on the nth of March 1796, and on the 21st 
Bonaparte started for Nice to assume com- 
mand of the army of Italy. It appears not 
improbable that Josephine's influence with the 
Barras had been largely instrumental in secur- 
ing this important appointment. 

We now have come to the beginning of 
Napoleon's career as a commander-in-chief, 
and since his history must be essentially mili- 
tary, since he remains without question the 
greatest soldier concerning whom we have ac- 
curate information, it will be well to examine 
at this point, before we follow him into Italy, 
what was actually represented by a movement 
of troops or a battle in his time. 

To speak of an advance or retreat of a right 
or left wing, or of a movement resulting in so 



TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE ii 

many thousands being killed, wounded, or be- 
coming prisoners, conveys but the vaguest 
notion of the evolutions actually carried out ; 
when considering the history of the greatest of 
captains it will not be out of place to take a 
preliminary view of the tactics and strategy 
of his day, and to attempt to convey some 
more precise impression of the actual occur- 
rences of the battle-field. 

When the French Revolution broke out, 
the art of war was as much trammelled by 
narrow regulations as was that of letters. The 
methods and traditions were those of Frederick 
the Great, but dogmatism had supplanted 
genius. Rigidity of discipline and tactical 
formalism were the foundation of the system. 
The soldier was a brutalized individual, skilled 
in multitudinous attitudes and formations, 
fighting like a machine under the inspira- 
tion of constant floggings. Two opposing 
lines of infantry, each formed on a depth of 
two or three ranks, would advance nearer and 
nearer to each other in the most perfect align- 
ment, every musket even, every toe turned to 
the same angle. When within firing distance 
the one whose discipline was the more rigid 
would generally manage to survive the two or 
three mechanical volleys that would be ex- 



22 NAPOLEON 

changed at a range of fifty to one hundred and 
twenty yards. With regiments thus drilled 
the great aim of every commander was to 
attain tactical perfection, and the conduct of 
a battle-field became slow and artificial. War 
was turned into a scientific game with arbitrary 
rules. 

France revolutionized war as she had every 
poHtical and social observance. With promo- 
tion thrown open to every soldier; with the 
doctrine of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, pro- 
claimed; with many of the old officers leaving 
the country, it became impossible to maintain 
discipline, and in many of the early battles of 
the Republic the French army suffered in con- 
sequence. The Convention declared that cor- 
poral punishment could not be inflicted on 
free men ; the sentiment was to its honour, but 
the army was soon reduced to chaotic condi- 
tions. From these conditions arose a new 
army, bolder and greater than the old. It was 
inspired by ardent patriotism, that finest of 
all the military virtues, and made up in dash, 
intelligence, and courage what it lacked in 
science. From these circumstances a new 
system of tactics was evolved, of which the 
most characteristic innovation may be under- 
stood by the following convenient illustration. 



TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE 



23 



A body of men marching along a road will 
naturally form a column, — say four abreast. 
Suppose such a column arrives near a village 
occupied by the enemy, and attempts to take 
it, — what is the simplest, least scientific man- 
ner in which this might be accomplished ? In 
the first place the most raw of officers and 
inexperienced of troops would quickly learn 
to double up so as to convert a front of four 
into a front of eight ; then a quick dash, the 
bayonet, the pressure of the rear ranks on the 
first, would do the rest. This was, in its rough- 
est form, the usual French system of attack 
during the wars of the Republic and Empire. 
The same column deployed, or opened up 
right and left, would give an extended front for 
firing when on the defensive. When attacking, 
the distance the column would have to cover 
exposed to musketry fire will be realized when 
it is stated that the extreme range of the mus- 
ket then in use was two hundred yards. Effec- 
tive volleys were generally fired at from one 
hundred and twenty down to sixty yards. 
When a French brigade attacked the usual 
disposition was for about one quarter of the 
infantry to be dispersed as skirmishers to 
draw and divert the enemy's fire. Behind 
these skirmishers, columns would be formed, 



24 NAPOLEON 

brought up as far forward as the ground would 
permit, and at the proper moment launched 
at the enemy's line at the charge. The forma- 
tion of these columns varied according to 
circumstances, but a front of sixteen and depth 
of seventy men, equivalent to two battalions 
of reduced strength, will probably convey a 
fair general impression. The French infantry 
excelled in offensive movements, in quickly 
seizing a hill, house, or hedge, and their celerity 
of movement and intelligence proved more 
than a match for the methods of the armies 
opposed to them. Before many years had 
passed every country of Europe, save Great 
Britain alone, abandoned the old tactics and 
copied the new. Similar changes took place 
in the handling of artillery and especially of 
cavalry, which were now used with far greater 
boldness, especially for completing the destruc-^ 
tion of the enemy after a successful engage- 
ment; perfect alignment became a secondary 
consideration. 

Strategy changed on the same lines as 
tactics. Slow, methodical movements were 
checked by rapid marching ; the capture of 
a fortress became an object of less impor- 
tance than the destruction of an army. Bona- 
parte fought his first campaign when the new 



TOULON AND VENDEMIAIRE 



25 



theories of war were just beginning to emerge 
from chaos, when a number of self-made and 
excellent officers had won their way to the 
heads of regiments and brigades; he grasped 
with a firm hand the instrument Fate had placed 
in his hands and wielded it from the very first 
instant with the skill of a master. 



CHRONOLOGY 



Sept., 
Aug., 
May, 

21 Sept., 
21 Jan., 
Feb., 

28 Aug., 

Nov., 

17 Dec, 

April, 

July, 

Aug., 
4 Oct., 



1792. 



1793- 



1789, to Feb., 1791. I Bonaparte in Corsica. 
1 791, to May, 1792. ) 

Bonaparte fails to secure success of 
French party at Ajaccio. 

Proclamation of the French Republic. 

Execution of Louis XVL 

Bonaparte fails in an expedition to Sar- 
dinia. 

Toulon occupied by Anglo-Spanish 
forces. 

Bonaparte Heutenant-colonel. 

Toulon captured by French. 

Bonaparte general, commanding artillery 
of army of Italy. 

Fall of Robespierre, — end of Reign of 
Terror. 

Bonaparte under arrest. 

13th of Vend^miaire, revolt of the Sec- 
tions suppressed by Bonaparte. 



1794. 



1795- 



26 NAPOLEON 

II March, 1796. Bonaparte marries Josephine Beauhar- 

nais. 
21 " " Leaves Paris to take command of army 

of Italy. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See note at page 11. 

For the preceding chapter : Bonaparte's early days, see 
note at page 12; for tactics and strategy, see Jomini, Art de 
la Guerre, Paris, 1837 (also English translations) ; Baring 
(Lord Cromer) Staff College Essays, 1S70J for the Siege 
of Toulon : Cottin, Toulon et les Anglais en i^QJ, Paris, 
1898, 8vo ; Du Teil, Napoleon Bonaparte et les generaux, 
Paris, 1897, 8vo; for Bonaparte in the Revolution, see 
Bourrienne already quoted, also Abrantes, Duchesse 
d' (Madame Junot), Memoires, Paris, 1835 (English 
translations) . 

For the life of the Bonaparte family in the south of 
France see Turquan, Les sosws de Napoleon, Paris, 1896. 
For Josephine Beauharnais, see Le Normand, Memoiresj 
Paris, 1827, 3 vols. (English translation) ; Lettres de 
Napoleon a Josephi?ie, Paris, 1833, 2 vols. (English trans- 
lations) ; Masson, Josephine, Paris, 1898, 



CHAPTER III 

THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 

1796-1797 

Montenotte — Armistice of Cherasco — Crossing of the Po — 
Lodi — Le petit caporal — Entrance into Milan — Castig- 
lione and Lonato — Bassano — Areola — Rivoli — Fall of 
Mantua. 

FROM the time Bonaparte took command 
of the army of Italy he appeared a 
changed man. He received even his 
oldest friends, such as Decres, with a reserve 
that was intended to mark the distance between 
them and his avowed aspiration to superiority. 
With the generals over whom he was placed 
such an attitude was perhaps necessary, for 
veterans like Massena, Augereau, and Serurier, 
were inclined to be restive at being placed 
under the command of the little Corsican whom 
they styled derisively le general Vendemiaire. 
This feeling soon disappeared, for Bonaparte, 
unlike most great captains, showed himself the 
master of his army and an accomplished strate- 
gist from the first moment. 

27 



28 NAPOLEON 

The French army of Italy numbered some 
thirty-seven thousand men; it was stationed 
along the coast of the Mediterranean in the 
neighbourhood of Nice and in the passes of the 
lower Alps. Across the mountains were two 
armies : the Sardinian of about twenty thousand 
men watching the passes and protecting the 
roads running northeast towards Turin ; the 
Austrian of about thirty-five thousand men oc- 
cupying Genoa on its left and thence stretch- 
ing across the Ligurian Alps to join hands with 
the Sardinians towards Dego and Montenotte. 
The Austro-Sardinians, under Beaulieu and 
Colli, were thus stretched out on a line of sixty 
miles through mountainous country; not only 
this, but their lines of communications were 
divergent, that of the Austrians on Alessandria, 
that of the Sardinians on Turin. Bonaparte 
framed his plan of operations in accordance 
with these facts. He concentrated his divisions, 
first made show of marching along the coast 
on Genoa, then turned off across the mountains 
and struck with his whole force at the point 
where the Austrian right joined the Sardinian 
left. The isolated divisions opposed to the 
French were beaten in a series of engagements 
at Montenotte, Dego, and Ceva; at Mondovi 
the Sardinians were defeated, Bonaparte pressed 





WA A«les?andrla.o "Marengo' 

Cherasco 



(Mo'dena q 



Moadovj; ^^^l;^|pSot'te 
Cevaf, 




o Bologna 



Campaign of Italy 



THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 



29 



them hard on the road to Turin, and on the 
28th of April, after a fortnight's campaign, the 
King of Sardinia was compelled to accept terms. 
An armistice was signed at Cherasco highly 
favourable to the French Republic and leaving 
Bonaparte free to operate against Beaulieu. 

The second part of the French general's 
operations turned on a similar strategic con- 
sideration as the first, that of compelling his 
enemy to cover his lines of communications ; 
and as this is an essential feature of the strategy 
of nearly all ages and countries it may be as 
well to make clear its precise significance before 
proceeding further. The reader who has not 
studied military history is apt to think of an 
army as a piece on a chessboard that may be 
moved freely in every direction. But this is 
not so; an army is a society having special 
needs that have to be met daily, and it can only 
be moved in such directions as will enable these 
needs to be satisfied. Food may be found for 
a small body in the country operated in ; but 
cities, even of the largest size, cannot supply 
at a moment's notice large quantities of gun- 
powder, shot, shell, muskets, boots, and the 
thousand and one things an army requires. 
How many small towns could work out even 
such a trifling problem as the reshoeing of the 



30 



NAPOLEON 



horses of a brigade of cavalry ? Every army 
consequently has a line of communications run- 
ning back to its base, along which pours a 
continuous stream of supplies essential to its 
continued action in the field ; and this line of 
communications is generally agreed to represent 
an army's weakest point. For if it is cut by 
the enemy the army becomes powerless as soon 
as it has expended the supplies actually on hand. 
Some of the most remarkable operations of war 
have turned on a clear comprehension of this 
fundamental principle ; we shall see it con- 
stantly brought into play in the campaigns of 
Napoleon. 

While Bonaparte was driving the Sardinians 
towards Turin, Beaulieu had concentrated his 
army to cover the road to Alessandria. After 
the signature of the armistice of Cherasco he re- 
treated to the north bank of the Po and pre- 
pared to oppose the crossing of the river and 
to defend Lombardy and Milan. Yet Bona- 
parte achieved the conquest of that rich prov- 
ince and its capital without firing a gun and by 
methods highly characteristic of his genius. 

A road runs northeast from Alessandria to 
Milan, crossing the Po at Valenza, in Sardinian 
territory. It was stipulated in the armistice of 
Cherasco that every facility should be afforded 



THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 31 

the French army for crossing the river at that 
point. Information of this quickly reached 
Beaulieu's headquarters, and he took up a 
strong position on the northern bank, whence 
he commanded the passage. He was confirmed 
in this disposition by the fact that the French 
as they advanced collected all the boats that 
could be found up stream from Valenza. But 
Bonaparte was only feinting. While one of 
his divisions demonstrated in front of Valenza 
and formed a screen along the Po, the great 
mass of the French army pushed along the 
southern bank to Piacenza, fifty miles east, and 
there crossed over safe from attack (May 7). 

This great strategic march placed the French 
army within a few miles of the Austrian line of 
communications, which ran from Milan, through 
Lodi, back to Mantua. No sooner had Beaulieu 
discovered that only a small part of the French 
w^ere before him, and that he was being out- 
flanked, than he hurriedly retreated, and aban- 
doning Milan reached Lodi a few hours before 
Bonaparte. From Lodi he continued his re- 
treat to Mantua, leaving a strong rear guard to 
keep the French back. 

On the loth of Mav was fought the battle 
of Lodi, of which the interest is more per- 
sonal than military. At this point the road to 



32 NAPOLEON 

Mantua crosses the Adda by a long bridge. 
At the further end of this bridge the Austrians 
had established a considerable force of infantry 
and artillery to cover the retreat. Bonaparte 
determined to carry the position by storm and 
a column of grenadiers was formed and sent to 
the attack. Mowed down by the Austrian 
guns and musketry, the column recoiled and 
retreated. Then Bonaparte, followed by Au- 
gereau, Lannes, and other officers, rushed in 
among the men, restored order, reformed the 
column, and placing themselves in the front led 
the grenadiers once more across the bridge. 
The Austrian fire was tremendous but Bona- 
parte's onset was irresistible, and he came out 
of the melee untouched. Later in life he 
declared it was on that day that the belief 
firmly took hold of him that he was destined to 
accomplish great deeds. That same evening a 
deputation of sergeants of grenadiers waited on 
him in his tent, and respectfully declared that 
he had been unanimously elected a corporal in 
their corps ; and for many years afterwards 
Napoleon was fondly called /e petit caporal by 
his soldiers. It was partly in this respect that 
he was a great captain, that he knew how to 
play on the feelings of his men. On his in- 
spections he would pass along the ranks unac- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 3:^ 

companied and speak directly to the soldiers, 
who were always at liberty to make known their 
wants. On one such occasion during the Em- 
pire a grizzled veteran reminded him that one 
night in the Italian campaign he had shared 
a loaf of bread with his general : instantly 
Napoleon granted him the promotion, or pen- 
sion, or medal he coveted, and made his heart 
glad. In his proclamations, that are frequently 
such difficult reading to the Anglo-Saxon, he 
played with perfect precision on the sentiments 
of the men who were to win his victories. In 
his first proclamation to the army of Italy he 
told the soldiers that they were without pay, 
without clothes, without glory, and that these 
were all to be found in the rich plains of Lom- 
bardy, into which he was about to lead them. 
He redeemed his word, for on the 15th of May 
the army made its entry into Milan. The sight 
of the republican soldiers produced a curious 
effect on the Milanese, so long accustomed to 
the brilliant uniforms and irreproachable drill 
of the Austrians. The French infantry was 
dressed in rags, and marched with a long, 
slouching step ; many of the subordinate offi- 
cers, even captains, were without boots. The 
generals were far from the rigid good breeding 
and presence of the Austrians. But the drums 
3 



34 



NAPOLEON 



rolled out the Ca ira, the bands played the 
Marseillaise, and from the draggled, weary 
columns there came a breath of fierce, swagger- 
ing spirit and patriotism that went far to ex- 
plain their success. And at their head was a 
plainly dressed, boyish figure, whose deep-set 
eyes and pale, impassive face, proclaimed aloud 
to those that gazed on him that the spirit and 
strength of the revolutionary army was directed 
by pure calculation and intellect; all Europe 
was soon to learn what the combination of the 
two eould accomplish. 

After having rested and refitted his army 
at the expense of Milan, where a provisional 
republican government was established, Bona- 
parte marched to the Mincio where Beaulieu 
had taken up his position. A passage was 
forced on the 30th of May, the Austrians re- 
treated into the Tyrol, and the French settled 
down to besiege the great fortress of Mantua, 
which Beaulieu had strongly garrisoned and 
provisioned. Bonaparte now looked for favour- 
able positions whence he could oppose the 
efforts of any relieving army sent by Austria, 
and took possession of the Venetian fortresses 
of Verona, Legnago, and Peschiera, These, 
together with Mantua, form the most famous 
strategical position of modern history, the 




The Quadrilateral 



THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 3s 

Quadrilateral, commanding the north side of 
the valley of the Po together with the passes 
of the Adige. 

Between June 1796 and January 1797, 
Austria made four attempts to relieve Mantua, 
all of which were defeated. In August the 
first effort was made by Wurmser with forty- 
five thousand men, Bonaparte being at that 
time slightly inferior in numbers. The Aus- 
trians advanced from the Tyrol in two bodies, 
one under Quosdanowich to the west of the 
lake of Garda, the other under Wurmser 
down the valley of the Adige. Bonaparte, 
proceeding on an entirely opposite principle, 
concentrated his whole army between the two 
Austrian divisions, even withdrawing the block- 
ading corps from Mantua, and by rapid march- 
ing succeeded in defeating Quosdanowich and 
Wurmser one after the other. There was 
a week's fighting and marching about the 
southern end of the lake of Garda, among the 
principal engagements being those at Castig- 
lione and Lonato, and finally the Austrians 
were defeated and retired to the Tyrol after 
suffering heavy losses. 

A month later (September 1796) Wurmser 
was ready to attempt the relief of Mantua 
once more, but from a different point. Leav- 



36 NAPOLEON 

ing Davidowich with fifteen thousand men to 
guard the passes of the Adige, he proposed 
marching from Trent to Bassano with twenty- 
five thousand men, and thence to circle around, 
approaching Mantua from Legnago. On the 
same day that Wurmser marched from Trent, 
Bonaparte started north from Verona with 
about thirty thousand men, intent on assum- 
ing the offensive. He drove Davidowich north 
towards Trent, and on discovering that the 
principal Austrian force was not in his front, 
but had marched to the east, he followed it 
without hesitation through the valley of the 
Brenta, joined and defeated it at Bassano, pur- 
sued it through Vicenza and Legnago, and 
finally drove its remnants into Mantua on 
the 1 2th of September. Wurmser had lost 
nearly half his numbers in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners. This was one of the boldest 
and most effective marches ever performed by 
Napoleon ; the troops had covered one hun- 
dred and fourteen miles in eight days. A 
speed of fourteen miles a day may not appear 
much to the reader not versed in military mat- 
ters, who does not appreciate the difficulty of 
moving long columns of heavily laden men 
over narrow roads inevitably blocked at fre- 
quent intervals ; but the study of military his- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 37 

tory will show that for periods of more than 
three days' continuous marching in an enemy's 
country, a rate of fourteen miles a day is very 
nearly an extreme. The American reader may 
note with particular interest that this is pre- 
cisely the rate at which Stonewall Jackson's 
famous marches during his Shenandoah Valley 
campaign work out. But, of course, this does 
not negative the fact that a small body of 
troops might in one day cover thirty or forty 
miles. 

Wurmser's second failure did not break 
down Austrian resolve. A new army was 
collected and placed under the command of 
Alvintzy. Towards the end of October the 
position was as follows : Alvintzy with thirty 
thousand men was on the Piave threatening 
an advance on Vicenza ; Davidowich with 
twenty thousand more was at Roveredo; the 
main French army was at Verona and num- 
bered about thirty thousand. Bonaparte now 
decided to reverse the operation he had carried 
out against Wurmser, to defeat Alvintzy on 
the Piave, then strike back through the val- 
ley of the Brenta at the flank and rear of 
Davidowich; but this time his plan failed. 
After some desultory fighting Alvintzy crossed 
the Piave and forced Bonaparte to retreat to 



38 NAPOLEON 

Verona. On the 12th of November the two 
armies met a few miles east of Verona, at Cal- 
diero, and the French were severely defeated. 
Bonaparte's position was now highly critical, 
for Davidowich had descended the Adige and 
was only held in check by a division occu- 
pying the strong position of Rivoli. Only a 
few miles separated the two Austrian armies, 
and it appeared as though their junction 
could not be prevented. But now that the 
loss of an hour, or a single prompt decision, 
mioht mean all the difference between sue- 
cess and failure, the acute perception and su- 
perb audacity of Bonaparte made him more 
than a match for the slow and cautious gen- 
erals opposed to him. On the night of the 
14th the French army crossed the Adige 
at Verona and turned eastward ; at Ronco 
the river was recrossed, and thence Bonaparte 
marched northwards to debouch on the flank 
and rear of Alvintzy. The success of the 
whole operation turned on the occupation of 
the bridge and village of Areola, which the 
Austrians defended with great courage during 
the whole of the 15th and i6th. Bonaparte 
tried to repeat at this point the charge over the 
bridge of Lodi, but saw nearly all his personal 
staff killed and wounded, and was himself 



THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY 



39 



swept by an Austrian counter-stroke into a 
swamp where he nearly perished. The fight- 
ing at Areola was of a desperate character, but 
finally, on the 1 7th, the French were successful 
in forcing a passage, and Alvintzy, finding the 
enemy in force on his line of communica- 
tions, decided to retreat. 

The last Austrian attempt to relieve Mantua 
was made two months later (January 1797) 
and under the same commander. Alvintzy 
now concentrated his main force, about thirty 
thousand men, at Roveredo and marched down 
the valley towards Verona; at the same time 
two smaller columns threatened the lower 
Adige from Vicenza and Padua. Bonaparte 
met Alvintzy at Rivoli (January 14) and by 
superior strategy inflicted a crushing defeat 
on the Austrians, who in two days lost thirteen 
thousand men. Thence he marched rapidly 
back to the lower Adige just in time to pre- 
vent the entry of Provera with nine thousand 
men into Mantua and to force him to capitu- 
late. These utterly disastrous operations of 
the relieving army sealed the fate of the fort- 
ress, and two weeks later Wurmser surrendered 
with some twenty thousand men (February 2, 
1797)- 



40 NAPOLEON 







CHRONOLOGY 


12 April, 


1796. 


Bonaparte's first victory, Montenotte. 


13 " 


<; 


Millesimo. 


22 « 


{( 


Mondovi. 


28 « 


C( 


Armistice of Cherasco. 


7 May, 


a 


Po crossed at Piacenza. 


10 " 


It 


Lodi. 


15 " 


It 


French entry into Milan. 


30 « 


(t 


Passage of Mincio. Siege of Mantua 
begins. 


31 Ny> 


(C 


Lonato. 


5 Aug., 


cc 


Castiglione. 


4-12 Sept., 


« 


Bonaparte's pursuit of Wurmser, — 
Verona, Bassano, Mantua. 


12 Nov., 


(( 


Alvintzy successful at Caldiero. 


15-17 « 


iC 


Areola. 


14 Jan., ; 


1797. 


Rivoli. 


16 « 


e( 


Provera capitulates at La Favorita. 


2 Feb., 


tc 


Fall of Mantua. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical: General. — See page 11. Add for 
military history: York von Wartenburg, Napoleon als 
Feldherr^ Berlin, 1886, 2 vols, (also French and English 
translations) . 

For preceding chapter : G. Fabry, Histoire de Varmee 
d'lialie {lYgd-gy)^ Paris, 1900, 2 vols.; Bouvier, Bona- 
parte en Italic^ Paris, 1899 (only to the occupation of 
Milan). For other than military matters see note to next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER IV 

CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 

Armistice of Leoben — Fall of Venice — Peace of Campo 
Formio — Methods of the French Armies, and of Bonaparte, 
his relations with the Directoire — The Eastern question 
— Expedition to Egypt — Capture of Malta — Battle of 
the Nile — Campaigns in Egypt and Syria — Return to 
France. 

TWO phases of Bonaparte's campaign 
of Italy have now been reviewed ; the 
first, essentially offensive, during which 
the French swept the Austrians back from the 
Alps to the Quadrilateral ; the second, essen- 
tially defensive, during which they reduced the 
fortress of Mantua and foiled every effort to 
relieve it. The third and last phase was to be 
offensive once more. A new Austrian army 
had been formed numbering about fifty thou- 
sand men, and had been placed under the 
command of the young Archduke Charles 
who had just begun his brilliant military ca- 
reer. Bonaparte was slightly stronger in num- 
bers, and manoeuvring with wonderful strategic 
skill first through the Upper Venetian prov- 
inces, then through the Julian Alps, he con- 
stantly out-generalled his opponent, won a 

41 



42 NAPOLEON 

number of small engagements, and forced him 
steadily backwards. So relentlessly did he 
urge on his columns that on the 7th of April 
he had reached the little town of Leoben on 
the northern slope of the Alps, less than one 
hundred miles from Vienna. Then at last 
Austria acknowledged defeat ; an armistice be- 
tween the two armies was agreed to, and the 
bases for negotiating a peace. 

Just at the moment when the negotiations of 
Leoben were freeing the French army from 
all anxiety in the north, the inhabitants of the 
Venetian mainland, long dissatisfied with mili- 
tary rule and rapacity, rose against the invaders. 
At Verona and elsewhere massacres took place. 
Nothing could have happened more oppor- 
tunely for Bonaparte. The excuse was a con- 
venient one for colouring the spoliation of the 
ancient republic of Venice, the neutrality of 
which neither France nor Austria had respected, 
the spoils of which both had coveted. The 
Doge and Senate were too weak to offer any 
resistance, and on the nth of May the city 
was occupied by French troops. The long 
history of Venice had come to an inglorious, 
nearly unnoticed close. 

Bonaparte spent that summer at the castle 
of Montebello near Milan, conducting the 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 43 

peace negotiations with the Austrian commis- 
sioners. With the attractive but extravagant 
Josephine by his side he held an informal 
court, to which many were attracted by the 
grace and beauty of Madame Bonaparte, but 
most by a [curiosity to see the extraordinary 
soldier who in a few short months had carved 
himself a place alongside of the greatest cap- 
tains of all ages. 

On the 17th of October peace was signed 
at Campo Formio. Its chief provisions were 
those that gave France the Rhine as frontier, 
that stipulated for the recognition by Aus- 
tria of the newly formed Ligurian and Cis- 
alpine republics (Genoa, Lombardy, Modena, 
and Bologna) and that transferred to Austria 
as a compensation for Lombardy, Venice and 
her Adriatic provinces. 

In the account given of the campaign of Italy 
the military operations have hitherto received 
nearly exclusive attention. There are a few 
other matters, however, that deserve passing 
notice. The French army, unpaid, weak in 
commissariat, loosely disciplined, followed by 
a horde of needy and not over-scrupulous 
adventurers, made the people of Italy pay 
dearly for the introduction among them of the 
glorious principles of the Revolution. Even 




44 NAPOLEON 

Bonaparte, who from the point of view of mili- 
tary efficiency disliked and did his best to pre- 
vent license, made the Italian cities disburse 
largely in return for the measure of liberty he 
brought them. Enormous contributions of war 
were imposed, and these took the form, in part, 
of a seizure of the treasures of Italian art for 
the benefit of the French national museums. 
Bonaparte pushed his odd and inexpensive 
collecting mania to great lengths, denuded 
northern Italy of nearly every masterpiece, and 
was accordingly elected a member of the In- 
stitut de France. How complacently he viewed 
this queerly won scientific distinction may be 
judged by the fact that, for several years after, 
he frequently wore the official dress of his new 
colleagues, and generally began his proclama- 
tions after the following fashion : Le citoyen 
Bonaparte, Membre de V Institute Commandant- 
en-chef, etc. Notwithstanding the corruption 
that attended the contracts for the provisioning 
of the French army, it seems pretty clear that 
the fingers of the general-in-chief remained clean. 
Large profits accrued to him legitimately in 
connection with prize money, but that was all. 

The genius of Bonaparte had been felt not 
by his army only. The magnetic influence 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 



45 



of his superiority had touched the Directoire. 
But for the present there was no obvious jeal- 
ousy or estrangement between that body and 
its masterful general ; each felt a need for the 
support of the other. When in the summer 
of 1797 there was fear of a new reactionary 
movement in Paris, Bonaparte gave his un- 
compromising support to the government, 
offered to march to Paris with the army, and 
sent General Augereau to carry out the Direc- 
toire s mandates for suppressing its opponents. 
The purging process then carried out in the 
ranks of the Royalists and Conservatives is 
known as the revolution of Fructidor. What 
is perhaps most important to note in this con- 
nection is the fact that the victorious army 
had now become the mainstay of the Republic. 
The Revolution had swallowed up all that was 
best fitted to govern in the civil population of 
France;, all the elements of strength and char- 
acter were now to be sought for in the army 
alone ; and the soldiers, led by generals like 
Jourdan, Bernadotte, Augereau, Murat, Victor, 
Ney and others, comrades who had carried the 
musket and risen from their ranks, were dem- 
ocrats to the last man. 

Towards the close of 1797, France being now 
at peace, General Bonaparte proceeded to Paris 



46 NAPOLEON 

where he met with a triumphant reception. 
In this connection it may be well to notice an 
important aspect of his remarkable personality : 
he not only knew how to win a battle, but also 
how to make the most of it. At that period 
newspapers were few and made little effort 
to obtain news at first hand. There were no 
special correspondents at General Bonaparte's 
battles, but he took care in person that they 
should be duly recorded. His bulletins, written 
in a rhetorical style suited to the public and 
military taste of his day, rarely mentioned the 
general-in-chief, gave the credit of every achieve- 
ment to the soldiers, but never failed when 
expedient to distort and falsify facts, all to the 
greater glory and profit of Napoleon Bona- 
parte. His numbers were always understated, 
those of his opponents exaggerated ; even de- 
feats such as that of Caldiero were officially 
travestied into victories. Thus a perfectly de- 
ceptive legend began to come into existence 
from the first weeks of the campaign of Italy, 
and thus it was studiously continued, even in 
the last painful days of the prisoner of Saint 
Helena, even in the last clauses of his will. 
On the Directoire s official reception of the 
general on his return to Paris in 1797, this 
talent of his for impressing the public mind was 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 47 

visibly manifested; for he carried in his hand 
to present to the government a parchment 
scroll, which was the treaty of Campo Formio, 
and behind him was displayed a large tricolour 
flag covered with gilt lettering recording the 
sixty victories of the army he had commanded, 
the capture of one hundred and fifty thousand 
prisoners, of one hundred and seventy colours, 
of fifteen hundred cannon. 

The wild enthusiasm displayed by the spec- 
tators of this dramatic scene did not lead 
Bonaparte, as it might have a weaker or more 
short-sighted man, to bid too openly for popular 
support. He declined to show himself in pub- 
lic, and even when he went to the theatre gen- 
erally occupied the darkest corner of his box. 
With him this was all a matter of calculation ; 
he saw no real political opening for the present, 
or, as he put it, the pear was not yet ripe, and 
he did not want the Parisian public to take 
him up like some new toy and then quickly 
tire of him. 

At first Bonaparte's idea appears to have 
been that he might be brought into the Di- 
rectoire, but the fact that he was only twenty- 
eight, and that the legal age for belonging to the 
executive body was forty, served as a good ex- 
cuse for keeping him out. The question was, 



48 NAPOLEON 

how was he, now that the Continent was at peace, 
to keep himself before the pubUc and earn new 
laurels ? The only hope of solving this ques- 
tion lay in the circumstances of the maritime 
war still proceeding with England. The Di- 
rectoire was as anxious as the young general 
that he should find some military employment, 
and he soon left Paris with a small staff per- 
sonally to inspect the French ports and camps 
facing the British coast along the Channel. 
This inspection proved unsatisfactory, and Bon- 
aparte decided that there was nothing in this 
direction to tempt him. But, as a result of the 
last war between France and England, there was 
an attractive theory firmly fixed in the public 
mind, a theory on which military action might 
be based, a theory still of considerable moment 
in world politics. In the war which was closed 
by the treaty of Versailles in 1783, France had 
won the honours and Great Britain had met with 
many reverses. French fleets had swept the 
Channel, English commerce had been harried, 
the American colonies had become the United 
States, France had made territorial gains; yet 
within a few months of the peace it was found 
that British prosperity was greater than ever, 
increasing by leaps and bounds, whereas France 
was heading straight towards bankruptcy. 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 



49 



What was the explanation of this curious re- 
sult? It would be out of place here to dis- 
cuss the economic aspects of this question ; to 
state the opinion then generally accepted in 
France is all that is necessary. That opinion 
was that the prosperity of Great Britain was 
chiefly due to her possession of and commerce 
with India ; therefore to deal an effective 
blow at Great Britain it was necessary to 
strike at India. Bonaparte through all his 
life accepted this as sound doctrine ; the only 
question with him was : How was India to 
be reached ? 

There were at that day, as there are now, 
three lines of approach from Europe to India, 
one by sea, one by land, the other of a mixed 
character. The sea route was that leading from 
the Atlantic round the extremity of Africa into 
the Indian Ocean ; the preponderance of Eng- 
land in naval strength placed this line of ap- 
proach virtually under her control, and although 
the possession of the Cape of Good Hope did 
eventually become a matter of dispute, opera- 
tions on this line were never seriously contem- 
plated by France. The land route was one 
that should lead from Russia or Asiatic Turkey 
through Persia and Afghanistan or Beluchistan 
to the valley of the Indus; in the year 1798 it 
4 



so 



NAPOLEON 



was far removed from any political combination 
that the French government was in a position 
to attempt, though ten years later it entered 
the field of practical politics. The third line 
of approach, the most rapid and convenient, 
was that running through the Mediterranean 
to Egypt and thence either overland or by the 
Red Sea. Bonaparte was a son of the Medi- 
terranean, his imagination had often evoked 
visions of Oriental conquest. He now eagerly 
took up the idea of dealing a powerful blow at 
Great Britain on her line of approach to India. 
His immediate aim was to establish the power 
of France in Egypt ; his ulterior one not well 
defined. He probably viewed as possible the 
eventual marching of an army from Egypt to 
the confines of India. 

The Directoire, pleased at the thought of 
ridding France of the presence of one in whom 
they detected a formidable rival, equipped a 
large fleet and placed a fine army of thirty 
thousand men under Bonaparte's orders. With 
these he sailed from Toulon in May 1798. A 
British fleet under Nelson had been sent into 
the Mediterranean to watch this great French 
armament, destined, as many supposed, for the 
invasion of England ; but for the moment 
Bonaparte and his admiral, Brueys, avoided 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 51 

meeting the enemy. They reached Malta on 
the loth of June and the Grand Master of 
the ancient Order of St. John was summoned 
to surrender his fortress to the army of the 
RepubHc. This he did ; and the French, hav- 
ing garrisoned Malta, sailed once more towards 
the east, shaping a course for Crete. After 
sighting this island, Admiral Brueys turned 
south-east and on the ist of July arrived in 
sight of Alexandria. Bonaparte now learned 
that Nelson with the British fleet had been 
there only two days previously, but had sailed 
away again to the north-east. He gave orders 
for immediate disembarkation, took possession 
of Alexandria, and started the next day on the 
advance to Cairo, the capital of Egypt. In 
the meanwhile Brueys moored his thirteen line- 
of-battle ships and frigates as close to the shore 
as he thought possible and awaited events at 
the anchorage of Aboukir. 

The British fleet under Nelson had left the 
straits of Messina a few days after Bonaparte 
sailed for Malta. Nelson shaped his course 
direct for Egypt, crossed that of his opponents 
so close as nearly to sight them, left them to 
northwards in the direction of Crete, and 
arrived off Alexandria first. He then cruised 
in various directions for information, and fi- 



51 NAPOLEON 

nally appeared off Aboukir again on the ist 
of August. On sighting the French fleet at 
anchor the British admiral immediately took his 
ships into action, succeeded in getting part of 
his fleet between the enemy and the shore, and 
battering the motionless French ships from 
both sides, consecutively sank or captured 
nearly every one of them. The French fought 
with great courage and obstinacy, and Admiral 
Brueys was lost with the flagship L' Orient, 
whose magazine exploded. The daring and skil- 
ful manoeuvre that had turned the French line 
and placed two British ships opposite each 
French one had decided the result of this 
great naval battle. 

Bonaparte and his army were now cut off 
from the world, and that in a country where 
the stores necessary for a European army 
could not be procured. Had Brueys' fleet not 
anchored at Aboukir, but sailed back to Malta, 
to Corfu, or even to Toulon, the position would 
have been threatening for England ; as it was, 
Bonaparte and his thirty thousand men were 
in great jeopardy. He proceeded, however, 
with his extraordinary enterprise with an im- 
perturbable self-reliance that inspired all those 
with whom he came into contact. 

Egypt was at that time a dependent province 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 53 

of the Turkish Empire ruled by a Bey and 
a dominant caste of military colonists who 
formed a splendid body of feudal cavalry known 
as the Mameluks. They proved, however, no 
match for the French army, and were crushed 
by the steady firing of the republican infan- 
try at the battle of the Pyramids on the 
2ist of July. This victory gave Bonaparte 
possession of Egypt which he now administered 
and converted into a source of supply in even 
more relentless fashion than he had treated 
Italy. During the autumn and early winter 
months he was actively engaged in matters of 
administration and prepared to turn Egypt into 
a firm base from which the next move might 
be securely made. What that next move 
might have been is perhaps indicated by the 
fact that he dispatched a letter to an Indian 
prince then at war with Great Britain, Tippoo 
Sahib, urging him to new efforts and promising 
him assistance. 

But India and even Constantinople were far 
off, and it is best to view as tentative this step 
of Bonaparte's, and to treat as only vague 
purposes the sayings attributed to him at this 
period in which he referred to the possibilities 
of founding a new Oriental empire, or of 
returning to France by way of Constantinople. 



54 



NAPOLEON 



What it is important not to forget is that once 
in Egypt every one of Bonaparte's movements 
was perfectly sound from a military point of 
view. Not one of them was based on any 
considerations in the least approaching the 
romantic. 

In January 1799, he had to resume active 
warfare. The Sultan decided to drive the 
French invaders out of his dominions, and for 
that purpose prepared two expeditions: one 
was to proceed by sea, the other by land 
through Asia Minor. Bonaparte determined 
not to await this double attack, but to take the 
offensive and deal with his opponents one at 
a time. Accordingly in January he marched 
across the desert from Egypt into Syria and 
after many hardships reached Jaffa, a small 
port already occupied by a Turkish advance 
guard. There was some severe fighting, the 
town was stormed and captured, and the French 
accepted the surrender of some two thousand 
prisoners. But the question at once arose : 
what was to be done with these men.? The 
army was short of food, and an arduous march 
through barren country lay before it. If the 
prisoners consumed rations, it would mean 
privation, perhaps even starvation for the army; 
if they were released they would probably 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT SS 

rejoin the Turks, or at all events take to the 
hills and marauding. It was a difficult problem, 
and was resolved in the safest but least merciful 
way : the Turks were taken out and shot down. 
This terrible incident has long been one of 
those most criticised in Bonaparte's career, yet 
modern military writers do not hesitate to 
justify it on the ground that a general can 
never sacrifice the vital interests of his army 
to those of humanity. This may be true, but 
it might also be pertinently asked : was not 
the unprovoked attack of France on Malta 
and on Egypt at least as great a subject for 
reproach.? Is it not far more important to 
award blame for the waging of an unjust war, 
than for what is only a military incident, of 
debatable necessity, occurring in the course 
of such a war? 

From Jaffa Bonaparte marched northwards 
to encounter the main Turkish force, and at 
Acre received a severe check. The Turks, 
assisted by Captain Sidney Smith of the British 
navy, defended the town with the utmost reso- 
lution, and after a siege of two months the 
French were beaten off. It was during the 
siege that a well-known incident occurred: 
Sidney Smith sent into the French camp a 
challenge inviting Bonaparte to meet him in 



56 NAPOLEON 

single combat, to which he received the per- 
tinent reply that the French general would 
accept if the British w^ould produce a Marl- 
borough to meet him ! During these two 
months the French overran northern Palestine 
and fought numerous engagements against the 
Turks, one of which, that of Mount Tabor, 
was a brilliant and decisive victory. On the 
20th of May the retreat began, and the army, 
after heavy losses and intense suffering, owing 
to lack of food and water and an outbreak of 
plague, reached Cairo a month later. Within 
a few weeks it was called on to make new exer- 
tions, for the Turkish fleet made its appearance 
off Aboukir and there disembarked some ten 
thousand troops. Bonaparte collected every 
available man, marched against the Turks, 
found them badly posted with their backs to 
the sea, routed, and in great part destroyed 
them. This was the battle of Aboukir (July 
26). Shortly afterwards he gave secret orders 
to have a small frigate got ready in the port 
of Alexandria, and on the 23d of August, 
1799, accompanied by Berthier, Murat, and a 
few others, he left the army and sailed for 
France. After a long journey and several nar- 
row escapes from British cruisers, he arrived 
in the bay of Frejus on the 9th of October. 



CAMPO FORMIO AND EGYPT 



57 



Had he commanded events and dates at the 
hand of Fate he could not have chosen better; 
for the pear was now exactly ripe. One month 
later he was the master of France. 





CHRONOLOGY 


2 Feb., 


1797. 


Fall of Mantua. 


19 " 


a 


Treaty of peace with Pope at Tolen- 
tino. 


18 April, 


a 


Leoben, — peace preliminaries be- 
tween France and Austria. 


May-July, 


a 


Bonaparte at Montebello. 


4 Sept., 


a 


1 8th Fructidor, — royalist move- 
ment put down by Augereau. 


17 Oct., 


a 


Treaty of Campo Formio between 
France and Austria. 


Nov., 


(t 


Bonaparte proceeds to Paris. 


19 May, 


1798. 


Expedition to Egypt sails. 


10 June, 


(( 


Arrives at Malta. 


2 July, 


i( 


Alexandria taken. 


21 <' 


(( 


The Pyramids. 


I Aug., 


it 


Battle of the Nile. 


6 March, 


1799- 


Jaffa stormed. 


[arch-May, 


(( 


Siege of Acre. 


15 April, 


i< 


Mount Tabor. 


25 July, 


a 


Aboukir. 


22 Aug., 


a 


Bonaparte leaves Egypt. 


9 Oct., 


a 


Lands at Fr^jus. 



58 NAPOLEON 



NOTE 

Bibliographical: General Histories. — See page ii. 
For the Campaign of Italy, see page 40 ; also for non- 
military affairs, Gaffarel, Bonaparte et les Repiibliques 
italiennes, Paris, 1894. For France and England, with 
the expedition to Egypt : Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, 
London, 1892; Desbri^re, Projets de debarquements aux 
lies Britanniques, Paris, 1901 ; La Jonquiere, Expedition 
d'Egypte, Paris, 1901 ; Burgoyne, Naval and Military 
Operations in Egypt, London, 1885. The memoirs of 
Bourrienne and Savary, though far from trustworthy, are 
the best for this period. 

Napoleon's attitude towards the question of Italian 
nationaUty is dealt with as a whole in a later chapter. 



CHAPTER V 

THE 18TH OF BRUMAIRE 

French Policy and Disasters — Sidyes — Novi and Zurich 
— Landing of Bonaparte — His Attitude — Episode with 
Josephine — Conspiracy — Bonaparte appointed to command 
Troops in Paris — Fall of the Directoire. 

THE peace signed at Campo Formio had 
not proved of long duration, for at 
the very time that Bonaparte was 
sailing for Egypt the Directoire had proved its 
incapacity by reversing his Italian policy and 
giving provocation to the Powers. During the 
course of the Italian campaign Bonaparte had 
shown an accommodating spirit in his relations 
with the two southern Italian States, the Papacy 
and the kingdom of Naples. He did not wish 
to weaken himself by carrying on military 
operations in such an ex-centric direction, nor 
would he associate himself too closely with the 
extreme anti-religious policy of the Directoire. 
But while the Egyptian expedition was prepar- 
ing, and after its departure, the French govern- 
ment successively quarrelled with and occupied 

59 



6o NAPOLEON 

both Rome and Naples, and there promoted 
the establishment of republics. The jealousy 
of Austria and Russia was at once kindled, and 
these two Powers took up arms. In the spring 
of 1 799, the French were several times defeated 
in northern Italy by Souvaroff, while the Aus- 
trians threatened the Rhine and an Anglo- 
Russian army prepared to operate from Holland. 
This military failure was not all, however; for 
the Directoire was as feeble and unsuccessful 
at home as abroad. In 1798 France became 
bankrupt. In the spring of 1799 the Jacobin 
party, representing what was left of the Terror- 
ist element, was successful in the elections and 
secured nearly one half of the seats in the 
Council of Five Hundred (lower House). The 
government had neither money, nor adminis- 
trative system, nor moral strength ; France 
was overrun by lawlessness, taxes were un- 
paid, gold was hoarded, and the only thing that 
prevented the Republic from sinking was the 
general fear of a Bourbon restoration. Nearly 
all men wanted to keep something of the Revo- 
lution, but so many political panaceas had 
already been exploded that there appeared 
little hope of agreement or salvation. At this 
crisis, in the early part of 1799, an important 
group of moderate men, anxious to save the 



THE 18TH OF B R U M A I R E 6i 

Republic by means of some administrative or 
constitutional reform, turned to the eminent 
doctrinaire Sieyes, then French ambassador at 
Berlin. Sieyes had been a prominent debater 
from the earliest days of the Revolution, and 
had gained the reputation of being the greatest 
constitutional authority of France. By a pru- 
dent course he had weathered the storms of 
Jacobinism, and now a convenient expurgation 
of the Directoire gave him a seat on that body, 
v/hile the best men in the legislative and ad- 
ministrative bodies rallied to his support and 
looked to him to effect a constitutional reform 
that should give stability to the State. Sieyes 
thought that to effect a change in the govern- 
ment the support of the army was essential. 
Bonaparte was in Egypt, and the British 
cruisers intercepted all communications. Under 
these circumstances, Sieyes decided that Gen- 
eral Joubert's should be the arm to deal the 
necessary blow. But in the summer of 1799 
the military fortunes of France had sunk so 
low that it was thought indispensable that 
Joubert should first retrieve something of the 
lost prestige. He was accordingly given all 
the troops that could be collected and sent into 
Italy to rally the dispirited remnants of the 
French army in that country and to bring the 



62 NAPOLEON 

Austro-Russians to battle ; from his anticipated 
victory he was to return to Paris and help 
Sieyes reform the State. At Novi, on the 
15th of August, one week before Bonaparte 
set sail from Alexandria, the two armies met ; 
Souvaroff was once more successful, Joubert 
was not only defeated but killed. This blow 
placed Sieyes for the moment in a desperate 
position ; and not only Sieyes but France as 
well, for the German and Italian frontiers were 
now both uncovered. Only one French army^: 
that of Massena in Switzerland, still held the 
field. For a few weeks after Novi the Repub- 
lic appeared doomed, and then, in the last week 
of September, Massena won a series of splendid 
successes in the neighbourhood of Zurich. A 
thrill of hope ran through France once more, 
and just at that moment Bonaparte landed. It 
was an extraordinary coincidence of prevision, 
audacity, and chance; he had just caught the 
turn of the tide that carries on to fortune. 

The feeling that Bonaparte was the only man 
who could save the State was so universal that 
no sooner was his frigate at anchor than she 
was boarded by a mob of excited people who 
took not the slightest heed of quarantine regula- 
tions. The general and his companions landed 
and proceeded on their journey to Paris, every 



THE 18TH OF BRUMAIRE 63 

stop, every change of horses being the occasion 
of enthusiastic demonstrations in honour of the 
conqueror of Italy, of the victor of Aboukir. 
But Bonaparte knew enough of the necessities of 
the times, of the temper of France, not to pose 
as the ambitious general. Moreau, Joubert, 
Massena, Jourdan, Hoche,had shown themselves 
fine soldiers, but Bonaparte alone had closed a 
series of victories by forcing a peace. It was 
peace France now wanted ; and it was the gen- 
eral who had presented the treaty of Campo 
Formio to the Directoire who was now declar- 
ing to those vv^ho eagerly pressed about him, 
that the government of France was driving 
her to ruin, but that he intended that peace 
should be obtained ' and that all classes of 
Frenchmen should enjoy its benefits. As a 
result of his Italian campaign, he declared, 
France had been left prosperous, victorious, and 
honoured ; he now found her bankrupt, de- 
feated, and disgraced. He allowed it to be 
understood that either with or without the Di- 
rectoire he was prepared to save the country. 

Bonaparte's return to Paris was marked by 
an important incident in his relations with 
Josephine. Probably no great man was ever 
less influenced in a political sense by women, 
and for that reason there will be little said on 



64 NAPOLEON 

that subject in this book ; yet the incident we 
are now coming to must receive notice because 
it partly leads up to and explains events of the 
greatest importance that took place ten years 
later. Josephine Bonaparte was beautiful and 
a woman of her period, frivolous, charming, ex- 
travagant, tender-hearted, and perfectly lax in 
her morality. Bonaparte had loved her in- 
tensely, fervently, as the letters he wrote to her 
in the course of the Italian campaign sufficiently 
disclose. But when in Egypt, intercepted cor- 
respondence and the tittle-tattle of kind friends 
had revealed to him that he had ample cause for 
divorce. Josephine hurried from Paris to meet 
her returning husband on the Lyons road, so as 
to place her version of affairs before him ere he 
should reach Paris. But the famous feud be- 
tween the Bonapartes and the Beauharnais was 
already in full force. Napoleon's brothers, 
Joseph and Lucien, who had now become im- 
portant political personages in Paris, had deter- 
mined to overthrow Josephine so that their 
influence might predominate with their brother. 
They also hastened to meet him and succeeded 
in doing so, whereas Josephine failed. For 
several days after his return to his little house 
in the rue Cha7itereine, of which the name had 
been changed to rue de la Vidoire, Bonaparte 



THE 18TH OF BRUMAIRE 65 

refused to see his wife. Finally her lamenta- 
tions and entreaties, with those of her two chil- 
dren, Eugene and Hortense, together with the 
feeling that an action for divorce would be im- 
politic at such a crisis, prevailed with Napoleon, 
and a reconciliation took place. 

The really important question was : how 
and by what means could a change of govern- 
ment giving power to Bonaparte be effected ? 
There were several ready formed parties anx- 
ious to win his support, but on his first 
arrival he practically declined all overtures, 
even those of his own brothers, declaring 
firmly that he belonged to no party, that 
he was in favour of no party, but that he 
was for all good Frenchmen to whatever party 
they belonged. In fact, he would follow no 
man, but wanted all men to follow him. The 
Directoire was too divided and impotent to 
take notice of the open challenge involved 
in the conduct of the Corsican general. He 
was in a sense a deserter from his army; he 
had come from a plague-stricken port and 
had violated the quarantine regulations; he 
openly impugned the conduct and threatened 
the existence of the government, yet the Di- 
rectoire dared not order his arrest for his moral 
strength was far greater than theirs. Public 
5 



66 NAPOLEON 

opinion saw in him the only man in France 
of sufficient ability and of sufficient strength 
of character to draw the country from the 
quagmire in which it was sinking. 

Probably Bonaparte's first intention was to 
make use of Barras with whom he had so 
effectively co-operated in crushing the rising 
of Vendemiaire 1795. Barras was still a mem- 
ber of the Directoire, but was now too dis- 
credited with the best section of pubhc opinion 
to be of any political utility. Between Sieyes 
and Bonaparte there was at first much cool- 
ness, but it was clear to many that in their 
co-operation was the only hope of effecting 
something useful. A party in which Talley- 
rand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Cam- 
baceres, Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte were 
active, succeeded in bringing the two men 
together. From that moment the scheme for 
effecting a revolution proceeded fast. The 
precise form that should be given to the new 
constitution was for the present left undeter- 
mined. What the conspirators were agreed on 
was that the executive power of the Republic 
must be strengthened and that a committee 
of three should hold it: Bonaparte, Sieyes, 
and a colleague who followed his lead, Roger 
Ducos. Few were let into the secret, but 



THE 18 TH OF BRUMAIRE 67 

there was a vast tacit conspiracy supporting 
Bonaparte and Sieyes that placed at their 
beck and call a large number of men in the 
legislative bodies, especially in the Council 
of Ancients. Few of them knew exactly what 
was intended, but most of them were prepared 
to take up any lead shown them. The cue 
was soon given. 

Bonaparte had since his return received 
many applications to review various bodies 
of troops quartered in the capital, but had 
deferred answering. On the night of the 
17th of Brumaire (November 8, 1799) he 
accepted all these invitations and fixed the 
following morning for the inspection, asking 
each commanding officer to march his troops 
to the garden of the Tuileries. He also wrote 
personal letters inviting every officer of note 
in Paris to call at his house in the rue de 
la Victoire at an early hour of the morning. 
During the course of the night the secretaries 
of the Council of Ancients, whose support had 
been secured by the Bonaparte-Sieyes faction, 
wrote and dispatched messages convening the 
members to a morning session on the i8th 
of Brumaire ; in a few cases where opposition 
might be expected, these messages were either 
not sent or failed to reach their destination. 



68 NAPOLEON 

Early in the morning a large assemblage 
of officers in full uniform gathered in the 
rue de la Victoire ; at the sight of their 
numbers all realized that the long-expected 
hour had come, though how the change in 
government was to be effected, none knew. 
All, however, save General Bernadotte whose 
sympathies were with the Jacobin party, fol- 
lowed Bonaparte, who led them in a body to 
the Tuileries where the Council of Ancients 
was already in session. That assembly, on 
the motion of one of the conspirators and 
in perfect accord with the terms of the exist- 
ing constitution, declared Paris to be in a 
condition threatening to the security of the 
State, decreed that both the upper and lower 
House should suspend their sessions and ad- 
journ to St. Cloud on the 19th, and that 
General Bonaparte should assume command 
of all the troops quartered in and near 
Paris. The general was now introduced, and 
harangued the legislators, declaring that he 
would support them and save the Republic. 
He then passed into the gardens where the 
troops were assembled and passed them in 
review, being at all points greeted with tre- 
mendous enthusiasm. 

While a packed meeting of the Council of 



THE 18TH OF BRUMAIRE 69 

Ancients was thus placing the power of the 
sword in Bonaparte's hands, the Directoire 
was rapidly disintegrating. As had been pre- 
concerted Sieyes and Roger Ducos made their 
appearance before the Council of Ancients 
and declared that they resigned their func- 
tions. Barras hesitated, but on pressure of 
some private nature being put on him by 
Talleyrand, he decided to make a virtue of 
necessity and signed his resignation. This 
left only two out of the five Directors in 
office, Moulins and Gohier; their influence 
was slight and did not affect the crisis. 

But there was a third body in the State, one 
in which the Jacobins were strong and from 
which trouble might not unreasonably be antici- 
pated, the Council of Five Hundred. In the 
enthusiasm created by the return of Bonaparte 
from Egypt that assembly had elected his 
brother Lucien president, and Lucien was now 
to play an almost decisive part. The Five 
Hundred were to assemble at noon that day 
in the ordinary course of business. No sooner 
had they done so than Lucien, declining to 
listen to any motion, declared the session ad- 
journed till the following day at St. Cloud, 
according to the terms of the perfectly consti- 
tutional decree issued by the Ancients. To 



70 ^ NAPOLEON 

this ruling the members perforce submitted, 
and thus every item of the day's programme 
had passed off without a hitch. All Paris 
appeared to rejoice at the events that had 
occurred, and, unique fact in the history of 
revolutions, the government stocks rose in the 
course of the day from 4J to i2f. 

But the revolution was only half accom- 
plished, and the 19th of Brumaire proved as 
stormy as the i8th had been peaceful. 



CHRONOLOGY 





1798. 


Bankruptcy of the Directoire. 




li 


Invasion of Rome and Naples. 




« 


Russia and Austria resume war. 


25 March, 


1799. 


Jourdan defeated at Stockach. 


15 ^"g-j 


(( 


Joubert defeated and killed at Novi. 


22 " 


ii 


Bonaparte leaves Egypt. 


25 Sept., 


<( 


Massena's victory at Zurich. 


9 Oct., 


a 


Bonaparte lands at Fr^jus. 


9 Nov., 


(I 


1 8th Brumaire. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical: General. — See page 11. 

For Brumaire there is nothing of the same rank as 
Vandal's Avenement de Bonaparte, Paris, 1902, perhaps 
the finest work yet written on Napoleonic history. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE 19TH OF BRUMAIRE AND MARENGO 

Scenes at St. Cloud — Formation of the new Government — 
External Affairs — The Army of Reserve — Plans of Cam- 
paign — Passage of the Alps — Marengo — Triumph of 
Bonaparte. 

IN the early hours of the 19th of Brumaire 
troops were marching out from Paris to 
St. Cloud, some five miles distant, to take 
charge of the palace where the legislative 
bodies were to meet. This palace, destroyed 
by the German bombardment in 1870, was 
on a hillside close by the river Seine, and 
its buildings, courts, and terraces were com- 
pletely encircled by massive iron grilles. Fol- 
lowing the troops came a constant stream of 
carriages and pedestrians, of legislators and 
spectators, so that by eleven or twelve o'clock 
the little village of St. Cloud was crowded with 
a representative audience come to witness the 
politico-dramatic performance announced to 
take place. Many pressed up to the grilles, 
watching the privileged few within and exchang- 

71 



72 



NAPOLEON 



ing comments with the sentries pacing beyond. 
These sentries really represented the essential 
factor in the situation, and therefore it will be 
well to note a few particulars concerning the 
troops. Of the thirty-five hundred men pres- 
ent most were devoted to Bonaparte. The 
cavalry consisted of several squadrons of dra- 
goons commanded by Colonel Sebastiani; he 
was a Corsican and had placed himself unre- 
servedly at his compatriot's disposal. The 
infantry consisted nearly entirely of several 
battalions that had followed Bonaparte in the 
campaign of Italy. They not only felt a per- 
sonal devotion for their old general, but a de- 
testation for what they called a government of 
lawyers from which they had never received 
proper treatment. The soldiers displayed their 
dilapidated uniforms to the spectators and com- 
plained that for six months the Directoire had 
left them starving and without pay. In one 
company a single pipe of tobacco was gravely 
passed from man to man, so that each might 
puff in turn and enjoy his proper share of this 
somewhat Spartan luxury. There could be no 
doubt as to what answer these soldiers would 
give if the question between Bonaparte and the 
government was placed clearly before them. 
But there was another body of some four hun- 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE ^ MARENGO 73 

dred men whose sentiments appeared more 
doubtful ; these were the guards of the Coun- 
cils. These men, picked to defend the Councils 
against Parisian disorder, were stout repub- 
licans, well paid and not disaffected ; it was 
uncertain how they would act, though their 
superior officers had been won over by the 
Sieyes-Bonaparte faction. 

It had been arranged that the Council of 
Ancients was to meet in a hall in the body 
of the Palace, the Council of Five Hundred in 
a covered orangery outside. It was from the 
Jacobins in the latter body that resistance was 
feared, for they had during the previous after- 
noon and evening been actively debating means 
of resistance to what they denounced as an 
attempt to overturn the Republic in favour of 
a dictature. Jourdan and Bernadotte, who 
each had some following in the army, were not 
disinclined to support the extremists, but noth- 
ing more was settled than that the Five Hun- 
dred would oppose a strenuous resistance to 
any constitutional amendment. 

Was constitutional amendment, however, the 
course that Bonaparte and Sieyes intended to 
adopt? No one could tell. The fact was that 
the conspirators, who had planned every detail 
of the first day with such minute care, had left 



74 NAPOLEON 

the second to take care of itself; there was 
absolutely no plan of action. 

When Bonaparte and his supporters arrived 
at St. Cloud on the morning of the 19th, they 
found preparations for the meeting of the 
two assemblies incomplete. It was past noon 
before the orangery was ready for use, and 
by that time impatience and nervousness had 
set in. At last Lucien Bonaparte took his 
seat in the presidential chair and the proceed- 
ings of the lower House opened. Many 
motions and resolutions were handed in, but 
one only met with the general approval of 
Jacobins, Bonapartists, and all sections : this 
was that the members should individually 
renew their oath to maintain the constitution. 
This was eminently characteristic of the assem- 
bly, a resort to talking when it was essential 
to act. At two o'clock the solemn farce began, 
at four it was still proceeding. 

In the meanwhile the Ancients had also got 
to business ; but unfortunately none of the 
members appeared to know precisely what 
course to take. Finally, getting no lead from 
Bonaparte or Sieyes, a proposal was put for- 
ward that the three vacancies in the Directoire 
should be filled up. Till this moment Bona- 
parte had been little seen. From a room in the 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE & MARENGO 75 

palace he had watched events, confidently 
awaiting their development in a favourable 
direction ; but the more he waited, the less 
satisfactory did the appearance of affairs be- 
come, and now, trusting to his soldier's instinct, 
he determined to proceed to the point of 
danger. Accompanied by his chief of staff, 
Berthier, and by his secretary, Bourrienne, he 
presented himself at the entrance of the Council 
of Ancients and, unbidden, entered the hall, 
making his way to the foot of the president's 
tribune. He then hastily and nervously deliv- 
ered a speech, the worst of his life. Unused 
to the atmosphere of a deliberative assembly, 
unprepared with any definite propositions, he 
excitedly stumbled from blunder to blunder. 
The Ancients were not disinclined to support 
him, but when he explained that the Republic 
was in danger from a great conspiracy, there 
were immediate demands that he should specify 
what his accusations meant. He grew em- 
barrassed and talked louder ; the legislators 
pressed questions on him and became heated ; 
finally Bonaparte began telling of what he 
had and what he could accomplish by the 
might of the sword. By this time Berthier 
and Bourrienne were pulling at his coat tails, 
and in the midst of much excitement they 



76 NAPOLEON 

finally half dragged, half persuaded him away. 
This was a bad beginning, but worse was to 
follow. 

Bonaparte was now roused, and, not waiting 
to cool, proceeded from the Ancients to the 
Five Hundred in the orangery below. There 
was a crowd at the door through which he 
slipped nearly unrecognized and began elbow- 
ing his way down a gangway blocked with 
members towards the presidential tribune. A 
moment later a voice shouted, "Down with the 
Dictator! down with the tyrant!" and a rush 
w^as made for the spot where the little Corsican 
was still struggling to make his way. An inde- 
scribable uproar followed. The cry of " Outlaw 
him ! " that five years before had sounded the 
knell of Robespierre, now rose loudest of all ; 
and, surrounded as he was by the furious depu- 
ties, Bonaparte appeared lost. But Murat with 
other officers and a few grenadiers were forcing 
their way through to save their general. In 
a moment more he was dragged safely away, 
half suffocated, his coat torn, his face scratched 
and bleeding. He retired to his room for a 
short while, then descended to the courtyard 
and mounted his horse; he was more at home 
in the saddle glancing down a row of bayonets 
than in the midst of legislative assemblies. 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE ^ MARENGO 77 

The incursion of Bonaparte Into the Council 
of Five Hundred resulted in the putting for- 
ward of a formal motion of outlawry, and it 
was well for him that his brother happened 
to be president of the assembly. Lucien 
showed as much resource and coolness in this 
crisis as Napoleon had impetuosity and rash- 
ness. He first declined to accept the motion, 
then finding he could not resist it, claimed his 
right to speak, and leaving the presidential 
chair, ascended the tribune. Notwithstanding 
the Jacobin efforts to howl him down he held 
his ground for some time, and succeeded in 
whispering a message to a friend to the effect 
that the conspirators must act at once or all 
would be lost. This message resulted in the 
appearance of half a dozen grenadiers in the 
hall, who proceeded to the tribune, surrounded 
Lucien, and escorted him out into the court- 
yard. No sooner was he in the open than 
he called for a horse, and jumping into the 
saddle pushed up to the ranks of the guards of 
the Council. He addressed them in ringing 
tones, declaring that a faction of assassins had 
dominated the assembly; that his life and that 
of his brother were no longer safe; that he, 
the president, represented the assembly, and 
called on them to restore order; and that if 



78 NAPOLEON 

his brother intended or ever attempted any- 
thing against republican institutions he would 
stab him with his own hands. At the con- 
clusion there was much loud shouting of 
Vive Bonaparte ! The guard of the Coun- 
cils appeared shaken, the soldiers of the line 
had long been stamping with impatience. At 
this moment some one, perhaps Murat, gave 
an order, and a drum began to roll out the 
charge ; Murat promptly made for the door 
of the Council chamber, followed by Leclerc 
and the infantry. This move was decisive. 
At the sight of the troops the legislators hur- 
ried to leave the hall, most of them by the 
windows, and Murat, ordering bayonets to be 
fixed, cleared the room. The revolution was 
accomplished. 

In the late hours of that evening small 
groups of the Five Hundred and of the 
Ancients representing the victorious faction 
met in the now deserted halls of the palace of 
St. Cloud, and gave an appearance of legality 
to the decrees sent for their approval by Bona- 
parte and Sieyes. On the following morning 
proclamations appeared announcing a new 
government under three consuls, Bonaparte, 
Sieyes, and Roger Ducos, and declaring a 
policy of the reunion of all parties and of peace. 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE & MARENGO 79 

It is curious to reflect, when viewing Bona- 
parte's career as a whole, that it was on a 
policy of peace that he attained power. Yet 
it was so ; that was undoubtedly the great 
desire of the French people in 1799, and it 
was the perfectly well-founded opinion of the 
country that if any man could give it peace, 
internal and external, it was Bonaparte. 

Yet the military situation of France was so 
weak in regard to the three great Powers with 
which she was at war that few believed in the 
possibility of foreign peace save through victory. 
Bonaparte, however, was no sooner in ofifice 
than he made pacific propositions to the allies, 
and so far succeeded that he detached the 
Czar Paul from the alliance. Great Britain 
declined all overtures, being then in hopes of 
soon reducing the French garrisons in Malta 
and Egypt; but this she did in terms that 
showed peace to be possible in the near 
future. With Austria, however, it was clear 
that a campaign must be fought. That cam- 
paign will now be related and a considera- 
tion of the internal policy of Bonaparte after 
Brumaire must be for the moment postponed. 

In the spring of 1800 the military position 
was as follows. The remnant of the French 
army of Italy was covering Genoa under the 



8o NAPOLEON 

command of Massena; a much superior Aus- 
trian army under Melas eventually drove it 
into that city and threatened an invasion in 
the direction of Toulon and Marseilles. In 
southern Germany Kray with one hundred 
and fifty thousand men menaced the Rhine. 
Moreau with an army nearly equal stood on 
the defensive at Basle. As against these two 
Austrian armies the French had a great ad- 
vantage of position owing to their holding the 
projecting bastion of Switzerland ; in strategic 
language they had a double base from which to 
manoeuvre, either to the north or to the south. 
The meaning of this will appear from the plans 
formed by Bonaparte. His first proposal was 
this: that all the available reserves should be 
marched into Switzerland to strengthen Mo- 
reau; that that general should transfer his 
army from Basle to Schaffhausen whence he 
could march, so as to place himself on the Aus- 
trian lines of communications ; that Bonaparte 
should accompany the army to supervise the 
operations. Moreau rejected this scheme ; he 
preferred a plain frontal advance to the more 
daring and destructive one proposed, and he 
objected to Bonaparte's virtual assumption of 
supreme command. Precisely at this juncture 
came the news that Melas had driven Massena 




BOEMAY 4 CO., N.Y. 



The Swiss base, iSoo 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE & MARENGO 8i 

into Genoa, and Bonaparte promptly deter- 
mined to alter his plans. Instead of basing 
himself on Switzerland to attack Kray's lines 
of communications, he would turn south and 
deal a similar blow at Melas. His prepara- 
tions for this were eminently characteristic of 
his genius. His first move was to deceive the 
enemy as to his strength and intentions. The 
newspapers accordingly announced the forma- 
tion of a camp at Dijon, where a formidable 
army of reserve was to be assembled. The 
First Consul, as he was now officially known, 
went down to inspect the troops and so, of 
course, did the spies of all the Powers. They 
found nothing more than a few weak battalions 
made up of boys and cripples and presenting 
a most ragged appearance. In a few weeks 
Bonaparte's army of reserve was the laughing 
stock of the courts of Europe; but not for 
long. The camp at Dijon was only a blind. 
With Berthier at the Ministry of War the most 
strenuous efforts were being made to squeeze 
out of the nearly exhausted resources of France 
one more effective army. There were other 
camps besides that of Dijon, where strong 
battalions were being got into shape. In April 
it was reported that reinforcements were to be 
marched to Nice where Suchet with a small 
6 



8a NAPOLEON 

force was facing Melas. In May it became 
known that Bonaparte was leaving Paris for a 
tour of inspection that was to last just two 
weeks. 

By an article of the new constitution it was 
provided that the First Consul should not exer- 
cise any military command. Such a clause 
was not likely to hold good with a man like 
Bonaparte at the head of the State. Yet the 
situation was precarious. The government 
was very new, and a military failure might 
spell ruin. In this difHcult position, anxious 
to direct operations, to keep up the military 
deception, to make Paris believe his absence 
momentary, — Bonaparte took the following 
steps. He appointed Berthier general-in-chief 
of the army of reserve, but arranged per- 
sonally to supervise the operations of that 
general ; he gave out that he was only leaving 
the capital for a fortnight, and that his diplo- 
matic receptions would not be interrupted. 
He left Paris on the 6th of May, and from 
that moment his plan ripened with startling 
rapidity. From the centre and east of France 
long columns had been for many days con- 
verging on Geneva and southern Switzerland. 
On the 14th the first column of a large 
army began ascending the pass of the Great 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE ^ MARENGO 83 

St. Bernard; a week later the army of re- 
serve, strengthened by a corps taken from 
Moreau, had struggled through the snow and 
ice of the Alps by various passes between 
the Mont Cenis and the St. Gotthard, and 
was rapidly marching down into Piedmont 
and Lombardy, straight towards Melas' lines 
of communications. 

The operations of the next three weeks may 
be summed up in a few words. It was some 
days before Melas realized that a French army 
of considerable size had descended from the 
Alpine passes into Italy ; by this time his line 
of retreat towards the Quadrilateral was cut. 
He then appears to have done all that was 
possible under such circumstances. He con- 
centrated his columns wdth a view to march- 
ing on the enemy, pressing on the siege of 
Genoa in the meanwhile. On the 4th of June 
Massena and his starved garrison surrendered 
after a memorable defence. In the week that 
followed Melas marched towards Alessandria, 
and on the 14th there was fought near that 
fortress the battle of Marengo that decided the 
result of the campaign. 

Bonaparte having occupied Milan and pushed 
Murat with the cavalry as far as Piacenza, 
crossed the Po, advanced to Stradella, and 



84 NAPOLEON 

thence spread out his corps right and left so 
as to intercept the Austrian retreat at every 
point. Strategically he had already won a 
nearly decisive advantage ; for being between 
the Austrian army and its base he had but to 
succeed in holding the defensive to win. Yet 
his anxiety to extend north and south led him 
into error, left him too weak centrally, and 
nearly resulted in disaster. The French main 
column marching south-west from Stradella 
came into contact with the Austrians march- 
ing north-east on the 13th, but failed to rec- 
ognise the fact that the enemy was in force ; 
Melas probably had some thirty-five thousand 
men present, Bonaparte not more than twenty 
thousand. On the following morning the 
Austrians advanced resolutely, deploying right 
and left of the main road. Bonaparte hastily 
sent orders to his outlying columns to march 
to his support, and withstood the attack as best 
he could. 

Heavy fighting followed, gradually turning 
in favour of the Austrians. By three o'clock 
in the afternoon the French had been driven 
some five or six miles, their left was completely 
routed, their right was in great confusion and 
in the centre alone was there still some sem- 
blance of effective resistance. To Melas the 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE & MARENGO 85 

battle now appeared won ; leaving the pursuit 
to his chief of staff he turned back to Alessan- 
dria, where he wrote dispatches to his govern- 
ment describing his victory over the French. 

On the departure of Melas the mass of the 
Austrian infantry was ordered to continue its 
advance along the road to Stradella in one 
heavy column, battalion after battalion. This 
over-confident and faulty disposition proved 
fatal. At four o'clock General Desaix, who 
had marched since the morning on the sound 
of the firing, brought up his division to the aid 
of the First Consul. A battery was placed 
across the road and suddenly unmasked; the 
head of the Austrian column, was broken; 
several of Desaix' fresh battalions were rushed 
forward with the bayonet, and at the same 
moment Kellermann charged down in flank 
with five or six hundred dragoons. In a few 
moments the dense Austrian ranks were in 
confusion and at the mercy of the horsemen. 
There was no time and no space in which 
to deploy. Bonaparte pushed his advantage 
home. The straggling French were rallied and 
brought back to the attack ; the fresh troops of 
Desaix carried everything before them, and 
avenged the fate of their general who fell early 
in the fight. In half an hour's time the victory 



86 NAPOLEON 

of the Austrians had been turned into a disas- 
trous rout in which they lost thousands of 
prisoners and all the positions they had cap- 
tured earlier in the day. 

On the following morning Melas offered 
to negotiate. A convention was agreed to 
whereby the Austrian army was permitted to 
continue its retreat, in return for which Lom- 
bardy and all the w^estern parts of Italy were 
ceded to the French. 

It is not altogether correct to think of Ma- 
rengo as a lucky victory. In one sense it was 
so ; but even had Melas won the field, Bona- 
parte had already secured so great a strategic 
advantage that he would probably have won 
the campaign. Had he retreated to the in- 
trenched position of Stradella and been rejoined 
there by the corps of Desaix and Serurier, it 
does not appear likely that Melas could have 
succeeded in dislodging him. Failing in that 
he was cut off from his base and would have 
had to pay the consequences. 

Bonaparte's return from Marengo to Paris 
was the greatest, the truest triumph of his life. 
The enthusiasm everywhere evoked was based 
on the idea that the struggle he had waged so 
successfully was necessary to the existence of 
France and was the herald of an honourable 



19TH OF BRUMAIRE & MARENGO 87 

peace. So it proved. A few months later 
Moreau defeated the Archduke John with great 
loss at Hohenlinden, and Austria gave up the 
struggle. Peace w^as signed at Luneville on 
the 9th of February 1801, and left France 
and Austria in about the same position as the 
treaty of Campo Formio four years before. 



CHRONOLOGY 

10 Nov., 1799. 19th Brumaire. 

15 Dec, " New Constitution proclaimed. 

6 May, 1800. Bonaparte leaves Paris for army. 

14-20 " " Crossing of the Alps. 

4 June, " Mass6na surrenders Genoa. 

14 " " Marengo. 

3 Dec, '•' Hohenlinden. 

9 Feb., 1 80 1. Peace of Luneville. 

NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See note page 1 1 . 

For Brumaire see last chapter. For Marengo, Huffer, 
Quellen fur Geschichte des Zeitalters . . . Leipzig, 1900, 
Vol. H. ; De Cugnac, Cavipagnes de Partnee de reserve^ 
Paris, 1 90 1. 



CHAPTER VII 

LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 

The Consular Constitution — Bonaparte secures a Dictator- 
ship — Plebiscites — Legal Reform — Influence and Work 
of Bonaparte — The Napoleonic Bureaucracy — Religious 
Questions — Death of Washington — The Press — Royalist 
Overtures. 

IT will be better briefly to depart from a 
chronological order and to consider as a 
whole the institutions that owed their 
origin to Napoleon ; they came into existence 
for the most part shortly after his accession to 
power, and may be conveniently thought of as 
originating in the period 1 800-1 805. There 
are three chief questions to be considered in 
this respect : first, constitutional ; second, legal 
and administrative ; third, religious. 

The new constitution of France, evolved 
from the revolution of Brumaire, had as its 
fundamental fact the personality of Bonaparte. 
For the sentiment that had made Brumaire 
possible, the sentiment represented by Sieyes 
and the moderate politicians, was that the exe- 
cutive power must be strengthened or the Re- 

88 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION 89 

public would perish. But theories are not the 
business of a strong executive officer ; charac- 
ter, personality, and facts must be the predom- 
inant note, — and this was what France found 
in Bonaparte. The very first meeting of the 
new government showed clearly what had hap- 
^pened. On the day following the overturning 
of the Council of Five Hundred, the three 
provisional Consuls assembled at the Luxem- 
bourg. Sieyes on entering the room asked the 
question : " Who is to preside ? " But Bona- 
parte had already sat down at the head of the 
table, and Roger Ducos replied: " Do you not 
see that the general presides ? " The question 
was never raised again. 

The new constitution was prepared by the 
provisional Consuls working with a large com- 
mittee representing the faction of the Ancients 
and Five Hundred that had supported the new 
government. It was principally made up of 
men who, whatever they had been in the early 
republican days, were now in favour of modera- 
tion and a strong executive ; with many, if not 
with most, the fact that the new government 
might have occasion to utilize and to remuner- 
ate their talents had the greatest weight. The 
committee and Consuls now set to work to 
frame a new constitution. Their first care 



90 NAPOLEON 

was to create four great bodies : first, the Coun- 
cil of State whose functions were to advise the 
executive in the preparation of legislation; 
second, the Tribunate, which was to discuss all 
laws, but without voting on them ; third, the 
Legislative Body, which, by a converse process, 
was to vote on all laws but without discussing 
them ; fourth, the Senate, whose principal duty 
was to decide on constitutional questions raised 
by the Tribunate. This may be characterized 
in a few words, as the diffusion of the political 
forces of the country, and as the provision of a 
large number of salaried positions in which the 
men of the Revolution might be conveniently 
deposited. The really useful body of the four 
was the Council of State in which were placed 
all the workers with practical knowledge of 
questions of finance, law, or administration. 

But, however great the lassitude of France, 
it was impossible to put forward any constitu- 
tion that did not make some show of being 
based on democratic principles. It was there- 
fore provided that there should be elections ; 
but these were of a very indirect and illusory 
character. Their result was merely to place 
before the executive a list, arrived at by several 
progressive steps, from which members of the 
Senate were appointed; the senators in turn 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION 91 

named the members of the Tribunate and Leg- 
islative Body. In practice this gave the head 
of the State a fairly effective control over all 
these bodies. 

The most thorny subject of discussion in the 
framing of the constitution was left for the 
last : what was to be the nature and extent of 
the executive power ? 

On this subject Sieyes had some ready-made 
theories to propose; but they were of an un- 
practical nature and were rapidly demolished 
by Bonaparte. This marked the point at which 
his influence gained a complete predominance 
and that of Sieyes began to sink. During the 
lengthy discussions that had taken place Bona- 
parte had shown that his was the master mind, 
and Sieyes soon after dropped out of the gov- 
ernment, receiving handsome compensation in 
emoluments and honours. It was finally de- 
cided that there should be a first, second, and 
third Consul, appointed for ten years ; that 
these officials should have a general control 
over foreign affairs, the army, navy, and police ; 
that Bonaparte should be First Consul, and 
should appoint the other two. Last of all came 
the question : what should be the powers of the 
consuls as between one another? Here really 
lay the knot of the new constitution, and most 



92 NAPOLEON 

declined the attempt to untie it. One solution 
would give France a modified Direct oire, the 
other a master. At this point, when all hesi- 
tated, Bonaparte's prompt intervention proved 
decisive, and all bowed to his imperious will. 
He dictated a clause whereby no act of the 
executive was to be undertaken without the 
First Consul consulting his colleagues, but they 
were given no vote, all decisions resting solely 
with him. This clause made Bonaparte in 
effect a dictator, and among those who realized 
the fact were doubtless more than one who 
believed that this was, after all, the best thing 
for France and for themselves. 

Bonaparte appointed as his colleagues Cam- 
baceres, an eminent jurist, who as a member 
of the Convention had voted for the death 
of Louis XVI., and Lebrun, a conservative of 
great financial knowledge, respected for his 
integrity and moderation. Among the first 
ministers were men of all shades of opinion, 
notable among whom were Talleyrand- Peri- 
gord, ex-abbe and member of the Convention, a 
subtle intriguer and experienced diplomatist; 
Gaudin, a functionary in the department of 
finance, whose ability in that sphere was of 
the greatest; Fouche, an ex-Terrorist, famous 
for the massacres of Lyons, always ready to sup- 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION 93 

port whatever government might be in power, 
a master craftsman in every device and deceit 
of secret police work. 

As soon as the new constitution was formu- 
lated it was submitted to the popular acceptance 
by a plebiscite or referendum, the result of 
which was satisfactory to the government. The 
plebiscite has played a large part in French 
politics since that date, and it is as well to state 
that it is in a strict sense not a true test of the 
political opinion of a country when the ques- 
tion at issue is one involving a change of 
government. In such a case it is usual to 
frame the question submitted to the people in 
such a form that a negative vote implies a desire 
for turning out the government de faeto. It is 
self evident that the citizens must always be 
few whose disapproval of such a government 
will carry them to the point of recording a vote 
which, if successful, could only mean revolution 
or civil war. 

So much for the constitution evolved from 
the revolution of Brumaire. Let us now con- 
sider the great legal and administrative work 
undertaken by the newly made First Consul. 

Napoleon has been called the new, or the 
modern Justinian ; he was, in fact, a great codi- 
fier of the law. Like his Roman predecessor 



"^ 



94 



NAPOLEON 



he intrusted to his ablest jurist the care of 
reducing the chaos of French laws to order. 
The upheaval and confusion caused by the 
Revolution facilitated the task of Cambaceres 
and his assistants. The ordonnances of Louis 
XIV., the subsequent laws of the Monarchy, 
the mass of legislative enactments of the Re- 
public, were recast in one piece and fitted into 
a somewhat theoretical framework derived from 
the principles of the Roman law. Bonaparte's 
technical knowledge did not fit him to take a 
very active part in these labours, yet the credit 
for the framing of the Code Napoleon is prop- 
erly his, for it was his unceasing stimulation 
that got the work done. He would occasion- 
ally keep his Councillors of State working all 
through the night till dawn, he would decide 
the points on which the jurists disagreed, and 
even the most expert specialist rarely left the 
council board without feeling that the marvel- 
lous pressure and power of elucidation of the 
great intellect that had presided had deepened 
his own knowledge of his particular subject. 
The Council of State was eminently a body 
for work, and its master drove it as hard as he 
did himself. 

The civil code, afterwards called Code Napo- 
leon, was published in 1804 ; it was followed 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION ^s 

by commercial and criminal codes, but it does 
not come within the space of this book to 
attempt a description of their provisions. It 
will suffice to say that the legal system of 
Napoleon forms at the present day the basis 
of much of the legislation of the world; its 
influence is strong from Prussia to Sicily, from 
St. Petersburg to Madrid, and even in such 
distant parts of the globe as Java, South Africa, 
and Louisiana. If it is possible to give an im- 
pression of the Code Napoleon in a few words, 
one might describe it as representing the mass 
of the laws andVustomis of old France, purged 
by the Revolution and poured by the genius of 
Napoleon into a Latin mould, paternal, authori- 
tive, clear, but inelastic. 

The Code was akin in spirit to the adminis- 
trative fabric that was erected alongside of it. 
The State was converted into one great bureau- 
cratic machine ; every phase of the life of each 
citizen was classified, supervised, and directed. 
What the French people want, declared Bona- 
parte, is equality, not liberty ; and his system 
was accordingly framed to provide all with 
equal justice, equal privileges, equal opportunity 
of advancement. But if the State was prepared 
to grant justice and preferment, it also took 
care to secure the services of all the intellect of 



96 NAPOLEON 

the country and to repress all attempts at 
individual action. Even education and religion 
were brigaded and administered in military 
fashion. Membres de VInstitut, illustrious sa- 
vants or artists, — Cuvier, Laplace, or David, — 
were officials salaried, uniformed, and supervised 
by the State. 

France had been divided into departments 
by the Republic ; each of these divisions had as 
chief administrator a prefect, depending on the 
Minister of the Interior. The principal duties 
of this functionary were to administer matters 
of revenue and police. Under him came the 
mayors of townships, and lower still came sub- 
ordinate officials, all under the control of the 
government, down to the game-keepers or sell- 
ers of tobacco and salt. The administrative or 
bureaucratic machine was powerfully supported 
by an extensive system of secret police. The 
ramifications of this department were so exten- 
sive that Fouche is reported actually to have 
secured reports from Josephine herself as to 
the daily doings of the household of the First 
Consul. 

With such a system there was a chance for 
every citizen, provided only he would accept 
the political situation and support the govern- 
ment; but it was entirely a downwards system, 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION 97 

proceeding from the governor, not from the 
governed, and in no wise resembling free in- 
stitutions. Feudalism and privileges had been 
swept away by the Revolution, but personal 
government had been reinstated by Bonaparte, 
— and personal government of a far more 
efficient and stable form than that of the 
Bourbons, because wonderfully adapted to the 
practical requirements of a European nation in 
the nineteenth century. Bonaparte had created 
what was the most powerful and effective in- 
strument for governing a country and for cen- 
tralizing and directing its strength yet seen in 
Europe ; none could fail to see the good points 
of his system. The opponents of France after 
suffering from the effects of the machine Napo- 
leon had constructed, copied it; and now bu- 
reaucratic government with a greater or less 
admixture of democratic tendencies or appear- 
ances, with an executive directing power strong 
in some countries, weak in others, is the one 
form to be met with in every part of the 
continent of Europe. But what else could be 
expected from Napoleon ? The revolution of 
Brumaire was not the work of a man whose 
first thought was the good of his country, 
and the two great currents of sentiment that 
brought it about were nothing better than 



98 NAPOLEON 

self-preservation on the part of the Sieyes fac- 
tion and ambition on that of Bonaparte. 

The religious question yet remains to be 
dealt with. In this as in all things Bonaparte 
took a purely practical point of view. He con- 
sidered Christianity, with Mohammedanism and 
all other religions, respectable and useful. For 
many years he had apparently no religious be- 
lief, but during boyhood and towards the close 
of his life he observed the forms of the Catholic 
faith. Whatever his inmost belief, as a states- 
man his attitude towards Rome may be said to 
have been purely political. During the cam- 
paign of Italy, in 1796-97, the Directoire had 
repeatedly pressed him to action against Rome, 
but he had shown enough reluctance in carry- 
ing out these orders to make clear to the astute 
Papal diplomatists that the young Republican 
general might one day be their friend. No 
sooner was he in power than he issued orders 
for removing the trammels placed on the 
Catholic worship. The ringing of the church 
bells throughout France a few days after the 
1 8th of Brumaire created a religious ferment 
that astonished the government and the coun- 
try, but that did no harm to the First Consul's 
popularity. He recognised even more clearly 
than before the deep attachment of the people 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION 99 

to their religion and determined to go further. 
Notwithstanding the murmurs of the army, 
in which atheism had been promoted to the 
rank of a creed, negotiations were opened with 
Rome, and in 1801 a treaty was signed re- 
establishing Catholicism in a privileged posi- 
tion. By the Concordat, as this treaty is 
known, Bonaparte obtained control of the 
nomination and salaries of all high ecclesiasti- 
cal dignitaries, thus securing over them a 
hold nearly equal to that which he had over 
his civil and military functionaries. A solemn 
service held to celebrate this event at Notre 
Dame led to unseemly scenes in which some 
of the generals, among them Lannes and 
Augereau, gave full vent to their disapproba- 
tion of the course taken by the First Consul. 
The feelings of the staunch republicans were 
further ruffled by the introduction of prayers 
for the head of the State. 

Bonaparte was clear-sighted in his religious 
policy, and took this great step forward with 
calm decision. Like every other act of the 
consulate, it turned partly on considerations 
relating to the strengthening of his personal 
authority. In the early days, however, when 
his supporters were still republican soldiers or 
republican politicians and not yet Bonapartists, 

iLofC. 



loo NAPOLEON 

it was impossible for him to profess any but 
republican opinions and intentions. A few 
weeks after his accession to power a very sol- 
emn farce was played on the occasion of the 
death of George Washington (December 14, 
1799). A funeral ceremony was held in honour 
of the American patriot, and the speeches 
delivered on that occasion more than inferred 
that France could now gaze on a Washington 
of her own ! Yet when we are inclined to 
view with amused indignation the obvious 
fraud and hoUowness of such professions, ought 
we not to marvel equally at the fact that the 
politicians of America have generally shown 
more respect for the methods and aims of 
Bonaparte than they have for the lofty states- 
manship and patriotism of Washington ! 

Acting on the principle he had constantly 
invoked since his return from Egypt, Bonaparte 
once in power, stopped the excessive political 
persecution that had so long been thought 
necessary. Many political prisoners were 
speedily released, and France was thrown open 
to thousands of exiles. While with one hand 
he thus acted with great apparent liberality, 
with the other he skilfully seized and muzzled 
the press, which he retained completely in his 
power during the next fourteen years. To 



LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION loi 

what extent this control was carried may be 
judged by the fact that the Moniteur never at 
any time made the slightest reference to the 
greatest naval battle of modern times, one in 
which France was not successful, that of 
Trafalgar ! 

The new government was a success from 
the first, and after Marengo its popularity was 
immense. Every month the position of France 
seemed to improve visibly, and Bonaparte soon 
thought he might advance a step towards the 
throne. The Comte de Provence, elder of the 
surviving brothers of Louis XV L, approached 
him with a view to a Bourbon restoration. 
This overture Bonaparte politely declined, 
and shortly afterwards a pamphlet appeared 
entitled : " Parallel between Cromwell, CcEsar, 
Monk, and Bonaparte',' in which the -imperial 
ambitions of the First Consul were clearly 
revealed. The impression produced was not 
favourable. France was not yet ready, and 
both the ardent republicans and the ardent 
royalists realized that Bonaparte was their 
most dangerous enemy and prepared to destroy 
him. 



102 NAPOLEON 



NOTE 



Bibliographical : General. — See page 1 1. 

For preceding chapter, Taine's Orighies de la France 
contemporaine is the capital work, though the twisting of the 
argument to fit the writer's negative thesis must be guarded 
against ; see also Monnet, Histoire de P administration^ 
Paris, 1885 ; Perouse, Napoleon r^- et les lois Civiles, 
Paris, 1866 ; D'Haussonville, L Eglise romaine et le 
pre7nier Empire, Paris, 1870; Debidour, L'Eglise et 
PEtat en France, Paris, 1898 ; Welschinger, La censure 
sous le premier Empire, Paris, 1882 ; Nervo, Finances 
frangaises, Paris, 1863. Among Memoirs those of Pasquier, 
Gaudin, Thibaudeau, Mollien, and Bourrienne may be 
consulted. Fournier (see page 11) has a good study of 
Napoleonic legislation ; Fisher, Napoleonic Statesmanship, 
Germany, Oxford, 1903, may be consulted for the applica- 
tion of the system in Germany. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE DUG D'ENGHIEN AND TRAFALGAR 

Conspiracies — The Bonaparte family — Moreau — Imperial 
Aspirations — The Due d'Enghien — Proclamation of the 
Empire — War with England — The Trafalgar Campaign. 

yl LONGSIDE of the extraordinary build- 
A^L ing up of the Napoleonic legislative and 
■^ -■" administrative edifice, the consulate 
was one long and secret struggle against the 
agitation and plots of the ultra-Jacobins on 
the one hand and of the ultra-Royalists on the 
other. Not long after Marengo a desperate 
attempt on the First Consul's life was made. 
A barrel of gunpowder was loaded on a hand- 
cart that was placed in a convenient position 
at a spot in the rue Ste. Nicaise by which the 
First Consul's carriage must be driven on his 
way to the opera. That night Bonaparte was 
unpunctual, and the coachman, who is said to 
have been intoxicated, lashed his horses furi- 
ously through the intricate network of streets 
at the back of the Tuileries to make up for the 
lost tim.e. The explosion took place just an 

103 



I04 NAPOLEON 

instant too late, and though many lives were 
lost and much damage was done, the First Con- 
sul went unscathed. At the opera there was a 
scene of the greatest excitement during which 
only two persons maintained a calm and dig- 
nified exterior. Napoleon and his sister Caroline. 
The personal friends of the First Consul, such 
men as Duroc and Junot, were quite unnerved, 
Hortense Beauharnais was crying, Josephine 
was hysterical, the spectators were eagerly 
demonstrating their joy at the escape of the 
head of the State, and Caroline alone with her 
brother sat in the front of the box watching the 
scene with a cool gaze. Of all Napoleon's 
brothers and sisters she probably resembled 
him most in uniting passionate ambition to 
cool calculation and boundless courage. Of 
the brothers the strongest in character was 
Lucien, whose decisive action on the i8th and 
19th of Brumaire has already been noted. Con- 
spicuous during the early days of the Consulate, 
he soon quarrelled with his powerful brother 
on a matrimonial question and eventually sepa- 
rated himself from him and lost all political 
influence. The eldest, Joseph, was the most 
subservient and useful. Stronger in intellect 
than in character, he was always conspicuous 
as a subordinate, and was eventually rewarded 



DUC D'ENGHIEN & TRAFALGAR 105 

with two insecure thrones. Louis, a man of 
intelHgence but uncertain disposition, married 
Napoleon's step-daughter Hortense, who in- 
herited much of her mother's charm and tem- 
perament. What with matrimonial difficulties 
with Hortense and political ones with Napoleon, 
Louis found his career not an easy one. He 
was never an important figure, but a son of 
Hortense was destined to restore the Empire 
as Napoleon HI. The youngest of the brothers, 
Jerome, was the least weighty, though even he 
was to become a king; his grandson. Prince 
Napoleon Victor, is at the present day the 
Bonapartist Pretender. Thus of the five sons 
of Charles Bonaparte one was to be an emperor 
and three, kings; his daughters rose nearly 
equally high. Elisa married a Corsican who 
was later created Prince Baciocchi and was 
given an Italian principality ; Pauline, the most 
beautiful member of a striking family, married 
first. General Leclerc, and after his death in 
the expedition of San Domingo, Prince Bor- 
ghese. Caroline, the youngest, married Joachim 
Murat, and eventually became Queen of Naples; 
her ambition finally drove her to betray her 
brother in his greatest hour of need. Jose- 
phine's son, Eugene, is the only member of 
the First Consul's family not yet mentioned. 



io6 NAPOLEON 

At the commencement of the consulate he was 
a mere boy ; before the end of the Empire he 
had made his mark and shown such qualities, 
political and military, that it will be no exagger- 
ation to say that it would have proved fortu- 
nate for France had the imperial throne come 
to him as a consequence of the fall of his 
step-father. 

But this enumeration of the Bonapartes and 
Beauharnais is a digression ; it is now necessary 
to return to the struggle of the consular gov- 
ernment for existence. Plot succeeded plot; 
the enemies of Bonaparte became more and 
more desperate as each month increased his 
power and brought him nearer to what was 
now his undisguised goal, the throne. The 
crisis culminated in the early weeks of 1804 
when a number of sensational arrests startled 
Paris. Several Royalist conspirators, with the 
secret assistance of the British government, 
had made their way into the capital with the 
intention of making some attempt against 
the First Consul. They were mostly men of 
desperate fortunes who had taken part in the 
insurrectionary movements in Vendee and 
Brittany; their leaders were Cadoudal and the 
ex-republican general Pichegru. Cadoudal was 
only taken after a fierce resistance; PichegrU 



DUC D'ENGHIEN ^TRAFALGAR 107 

was found strangled in his prison shortly 
after his capture. But the most important 
and sensational arrest of all was that of Gen- 
eral Moreau, who appears to have had no 
real connection with the conspiracy. Moreau, 
the victor of Hohenlinden, was as beloved by 
the army of Germany as Bonaparte was by the 
army of Italy. Moreau, the staunch repub- 
lican, was the hope of many who saw in Bona- 
parte the coming Caesar. Moreau, who had 
always retreated from politics, might be used 
to pull down a fellow general who had for- 
gotten his soldier's duty. He was accused 
of complicity in the royalist plot, arrested and 
tried. Although nothing substantial could be 
proved against him, he was driven into exile 
and left France for America. Cadoudal was 
less fortunate and he, together with several of 
his accomplices, was sentenced to death. But 
the matter did not end here. 

The extremely dangerous conspiracy of Ca- 
doudal, following as it had many others, and 
coinciding with the moment at which Bona- 
parte had at last decided to seize the crown, 
appears to have thrown him into a state of 
nervous excitement. Was he to reach the 
object of his ambition or were his enemies to 
pull him down at the last moment ? He seems 



io8 NAPOLEON 

to have thought, and Macchiavelli would have 
approved, that under such circumstances he 
could keep his enemies down only by a stroke 
of terror. He aimed a blow at the repub- 
licans by arresting Moreau, he dealt one to 
the Bourbons by virtually assassinating the 
Due d'Enghien. 

This young prince of the Conde branch of 
the House of Bourbon was near the French 
frontier staying in a country house in the 
duchy of Baden. He had held a command in 
the army with which the French emigres had 
fought the Republic, and his presence on the 
border was held to signify that on the success 
of Cadoudal he was to enter France and take 
command of the royalist movement. On the 
1 5th of March a party of gendarmes commanded 
by Savary, a confidential agent of Bonaparte, 
violated the frontier of Baden, and taking the 
duke from his bed placed him in a carriage 
and hurried him to Paris. He arrived there 
on the night of the 19th, was conveyed to the 
fort of Vincennes, tried by a subservient court- 
martial in the course of the same night, sen- 
tenced to death on no evidence, and shot at 
dawn. This crime, the most obvious blot on 
Napoleon's name, produced a wave of indigna- 
tion that swept' all Europe including France. 



DUC D'ENGHIEN ^ TRAFALGAR 109 

Not one of the First Consul's supporters ap- 
proved the act, most of them regretted or re- 
pudiated it. Chateaubriand resigned from the 
diplomatic service ; Talleyrand sententiously 
declared that the execution of the Due d'En- 
ghien was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. 
Yet as a stroke of terror, however unsuited 
to the political conditions of the nineteenth 
century, it was not altogether unsuccessful. 
From that time on France acknowledged her 
master without question, and the stain of blood 
of the 20th of March 1804, did not prevent the 
proclamation of the Empire on the i8th of 
May following. 

In 1802 a plebiscite had converted Bona- 
parte's consulate for ten years into a consulate 
for life. In 1804 there was little more to do 
than to make the dignity hereditary and to 
change its title. That of king would not have 
been tolerated by France; even that of em- 
peror, which Bonaparte chose, was associated 
with the continuance of France as a Republic, 
and for many months after the proclamation of 
the Emperor Napoleon, France still retained 
the political style she had assumed on the ist 
of Vendemiaire of the year i, the 2 2d of Sep- 
tember 1792. The coronation of the new 
Emperor took place at the Cathedral of Notre 



no NAPOLEON 

Dame on the 2d of December following his 
proclamation. The ceremony was invested 
with the greatest pomp, and the Pope was per- 
suaded into travelling to Paris to perform it. 
It was many years since the annals of the 
Papacy had registered a similar event, and in 
the minds of all people of the Latin race it 
Q:ave the new monarch a consecration that 
placed him on a not much lower level than 
that of the proudest Houses of Europe whose 
power reposed on the basis of divine right. In 
the following May (1805) Napoleon proceeded 
to Milan, the capital of what had hitherto been 
known as the Cisalpine Republic. There he 
proclaimed the kingdom of Italy, an ambitious 
and suggestive name for such a small State as 
Lombardy and her dependencies ; he crowned 
himself with the Iron Crown of the Lombards, 
and announced that the viceroyalty would be 
entrusted to Prince Eugene, who would be his 
heir to the Italian throne. During these cere- 
monies the republic of Genoa sent a deputa- 
tion asking for incorporation with France. This 
was, of course, an instigated act ; it gave more 
obvious proof than any previous one that am- 
bitious aggressiveness might be expected as the 
keynote of the policy of the Emperor Napoleon; 
it offended Austria's pride and before long drew 



DUG D'ENGHIEN ^ TRAFALGAR iii 

that Power into a new contest with France, 
the third since the days of the RepubHc. 

We must now re-enter the atmosphere of 
war that constitutes the background of Napo- 
leon's career. In 1805 began the first of the 
three great cycles of the wars of the Empire. 
But to understand the events of the continental 
war of 1805 we must first take up the relations 
of France and England at the point at which 
we left them. 

Austria signed peace with France at Lune- 
ville after Marengo, in 1801, leaving Great 
Britain alone at war. That Power having 
driven the remains of Bonaparte's army from 
Eg3^pt, and having also captured Malta, now 
entered into negotiation. Peace was eventually 
concluded at Amiens on the 27th of March 
1802. The negotiations were difficult, but the 
only essential question was really that of the 
Mediterranean and Malta. Great Britain finally 
agreed to withdraw from the island in favour of 
some neutral Power. But the position of Malta, 
midway between the western and eastern ex- 
tremities of the Mediterranean, and the now 
unveiled ambition of Bonaparte to acquire a 
colonial empire, and to resume sooner or later 
his movement towards the east, made the 
British cabinet defer evacuation. French 



112 NAPOLEON 

troops occupied part of the kingdom of Naples 
with the port of Taranto, and the French gov- 
ernment declined to remove them so long as 
the British remained at Malta. The peace be- 
tween the two countries was in fact little more 
than a truce, as was well shown by a medal 
struck by Denon in which Bonaparte's head 
is covered with a helmet and surmounted by 
the threatening legend : Arme pour la paix, — 
armed for peace. After much diplomatic dis- 
putation, during which the First Consul was 
strengthening his hold on Italy and Switzer- 
land and preparing plans for trans-oceanic ex- 
tension, Great Britain broke off negotiations 
on the question of Malta, and withdrew her 
ambassador from Paris on the 12th of May 
1803.^ 

This renewal of hostilities between France 
and Great Britain made Bonaparte adjourn his 
colonial ambitions ; it influenced among other 
things his relations with America. The ag- 
gressive policy of the Directoire had led to a 
rupture between France and the United States 
in 1798; this had been patched up by Bona- 
parte in 1801. But a little later he set his 
eyes on Louisiana and would have probably 
attempted its occupation with the assent of its 
Spanish owners in the face of clearly expressed 



DUC D'ENGHIEN £57^ TRAFALGAR 113 

American opposition, had not the inevitable- 
ness of war with England led him to reconsider 
his decision. The people of the United States 
viewed the transfer of Louisiana from Spain to 
France with the utmost dislike. It would have 
given France the western bank of the Missis- 
sippi from the Gulf to the Canadian lakes, bar- 
ring all possibility of expansion to the west. So 
it proved fortunate for the good relations of 
France and the United States that the former 
now plunged into war with Great Britain once 
more. By so doing she lost all power of action 
beyond the seas and was better prepared to 
abandon her new colonial scheme. A rapid 
negotiation resulted in the transfer of Louisiana 
to the United States for a sum of sixty mil- 
lion francs ($12,000,000).^ 

In 1803 the position of Bonaparte in regard 
to a war with Great Britain was very different 
from what it had been in 1798. Then the re- 
sources of France were limited, the ambition 
of the young general urged him to hazardous 
courses; now the resources of the country were 
vastly increased, and the First Consul was no 
longer ready to leave France and seek for glory 

^ Louisiana included not only what is now the State of that 
name, but the whole of the western half of the basin of the 
Mississippi, 



114 NAPOLEON 

at the further end of the Mediterranean. For 
every reason the opposite mode of attack to 
that of 1798 was chosen, and Bonaparte decided 
on the invasion of England. This great naval 
and military operation could not be carried out 
at a moment's notice, but necessitated prepara- 
tions spreading over many months. From 
Dieppe to Antwerp the coast was armed with 
batteries covering numerous camps in which 
troops began to accumulate. Every port, great 
and small, was fortified, improved, and filled 
with pontoons and gunboats. Hundreds of 
gun vessels and numerous light cruisers were 
collected to engage the British ships that 
scoured the Channel. 

But it was useless to venture troops in light 
transports to cross the Channel while the 
British fleet held command of the sea; nor 
did Napoleon seriously contemplate doing so. 
He planned a gigantic naval campaign that 
was to give him control of the Channel. His 
plan changed in details almost from day to 
day, but in broad outline, as it came most near 
execution, it was as follows. 

There were at that time several French 
squadrons of which the two largest were 
stationed at Brest and Toulon. Between these 
two ports, following the coastline of France 



DUC DVENGHIEN ^ TRAFALGAR 115 

and of Spain her ally, were several others, such 
as Rochefort, Ferrol, Cadiz, and Cartagena, 
where smaller divisions were stationed. But 
the Brest fleet was closely blockaded by Lord 
Gornwallis, and that at Toulon was watched 
by Lord Nelson. At every point, as the fleets 
were distributed, the British were practically 
assured of success. To neutralize this advan- 
tage, to delude the British admirals, to con- 
centrate the greatest possible force on the 
decisive point, Napoleon worked out a scheme 
of which we will now follow the unfolding. 
Admiral Villeneuve, commanding the Toulon 
fleet, in obedience to instructions, took advan- 
tage of a favouring slant of wind to make his 
escape from that port in the spring of 1805. 
He sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar, and 
thence nearly due west. Nelson was quickly 
on his track and followed out into the Atlantic. 
The British admiral soon learned that his 
adversary was sailing west, and concluding that 
his business was in the West Indian Islands, 
determined to cross the Atlantic in pursuit. 

But Villeneuve's real objective was not the 
West Indies ; his long journey of three thou- 
sand miles was only intended to deceive and 
distract the eye from the real point of danger. 
Had Nelson's instinct been as keen as Napo- 



ii6 NAPOLEON 

Icon's plan was large, he would have sailed 
from Gibraltar not for the West Indies, but 
for the mouth of the Channel, for there was 
the vital point. As it was he sailed west, and 
having reached the West Indies discovered 
that Villeneuve, after a stay of a few days only, 
had put to sea again, this time steering east. 
Once more Nelson pursued, but once more he 
failed to see the bearing of Villeneuve 's extraor- 
dinary movement and did not shape his course 
for the Channel, but sailed back towards the 
Mediterranean. The intention of Napoleon 
was that the fleet should make land at Ferrol, 
free the small squadron there, and thence sail to 
Rochefort and Brest. At that point he hoped 
that the superiority of his combined fleets 
would enable them to owerpower Cornwallis 
and sweep up the Channel. It would have 
taken a stronger man than Villeneuve to carry 
out this great plan successfully. He fought 
an indecisive action with a smaller English 
fleet under Calder off Ferrol, on the 2 2d of 
July, and then decided he could not reach 
Brest, eventually retiring to Cadiz. 

Other events had meanwhile put an end to 
Napoleon's project of an invasion of England, 
but before relating those events, the fate of 
Villeneuve's fleet must be briefly told. The 



DUC D'ENGHIEN ^ TRAFALGAR 117 

Emperor was indignant at what he considered 
his admiral's pusillanimity. Villeneuve, to fore- 
stall his removal from command, determined 
to take his fleet out of Cadiz and fight at any 
cost. On the 21st of October 1805, he met 
Nelson off Cape Trafalgar, and was utterly 
defeated by the superior skill of his opponent. 
The Franco-Spanish fleet was nearly entirely 
destroyed, but England's greatest admiral paid 
for victory with his life. 







CHRONOLOGY 


Sept., 


1800. 


British capture Malta. 


Aug., 


1801. 


British capture Egypt. 


I Oct., 


n 


Peace preliminaries, France and Great 
Britain. 


Jan., 


1802. 


Bonaparte President of Cisalpine Re- 
public. 


27 May, 


n 


Treaty of Amiens. 


I Aug., 


a 


Bonaparte consul for life. 


12 May, 


1803. 


Renewal of war with England. 


20 March, 


1804. 


Due d'Enghien shot. 


18 May, 


(C 


Proclamation of Empire. 


2 Dec, 


{( 


Coronation of Napoleon. 


21 Oct., 


1805. 


Trafalgar. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 11. 
For the expedition to San Domingo see H. Adams, 
Historical Essays y New York, 1891. For relations of 



ii8 NAPOLEON 

France and Great Britain see Browning, England and 
Napoleon in i8oj, London, 1887 ; DESBRii:RE, Projets et 
tentaiives de debarquemenl, Paris, 1902 ; Jurien de la 
Graviere, Guerres maritimes, Paris, 1864; Mahan, In- 
fluence of Sea Power, London, 1892 ; for conspiracies 
against Napoleon, see Guillon, Complots Militaires, Paris, 
1894; on the last subject and on the intrigues and life of 
the consular court in general the following memoirs may 
also be consulted : Bourrienne, Duchesse d'Abrantes, 
Le Normand; also several works by Turquan, though 
these are not altogether recommendable. The CEuvres 
of Roederer and Con^espondence of Joseph Bonaparte 
are of the highest importance but too voluminous for the 
ordinary reader. Rose is of special value on the relations 
between France and England. 



CHAPTER IX 

AUSTERLITZ 

Ulm — A Proclamation of Napoleon — Occupation of Vienna 
— Austerlitz — Peace of Pressburg. 

THE threat of invasion had created the 
most profound alarm in England, and 
British diplomacy had exerted itself 
to the utmost to provoke a continental war 
that should draw Napoleon's great army away 
from its camps on the coasts of the Channel. 
In this it was successful, for in the autumn 
of 1805, Austria and Russia, having previously 
entered into a treaty with Great Britain, began 
moving their armies towards the French fron- 
tiers. War had long been foreseen. The grow- 
ing strength of France, the brutally asserted 
ambition of the new made Emperor, the losses 
and humiliations suffered by Austria in two 
previous wars, all tended to bring about this re- 
sult. Napoleon had long been preparing for 
it. He abandoned without hesitation his camps 
along the ocean and began transferring the 
army thence to the heart of Germany. The 

119 



I20 NAPOLEON 

march began on the 27th of August; it was of 
some five hundred miles ; on the 14th of Octo- 
ber Munich, the capital of Bavaria, was occu- 
pied ; a week later the first Austrian army had 
been virtually destroyed. 

General Mack, the Austrian commander, had 
invaded Bavaria in September and thence ad- 
vanced towards the Rhine, eventually occupy- 
ing a position at Ulm facing the Black Forest. 
He expected that the French would advance 
from some point between Basle and Mayence 
and appear in this direction. Napoleon did 
everything possible to lull Mack into security. 
He proceeded in person to Paris, handed over 
the command of the army to Murat, and osten- 
tatiously sent him to Strasbourg. He moved 
large detachments of dragoons and light cavalry 
into the duchy of Baden and into the Black 
Forest, simulating a screen behind which the 
army was concentrating. Later, when it be- 
came necessary for him to leave for the front, 
public attention was again called to Strasbourg 
by the imperial baggage taking this route and by 
the Emperor's also following it. While these 
demonstrations were keeping Mack motionless 
at Ulm anxiously watching the debouches of 
the Black Forest, the seven French army corps, 
starting from a base that stretched from Bou- 



AUSTERLITZ 121 

logne to Hanover, were sweeping to the north- 
west of Mack through Mayence, Coblentz, and 
Cassel, circling around his right wing, and 
finally sweeping down from the north on to the 
valley of the Danube in his rear. It was a 
repetition of the strategy of Marengo, and the 
Austrians were half beaten before a shot was 
fired. 

The fighting that followed was desultory. 
Isolated Austrian divisions tried to force their 
way through and escape, but were in nearly 
every case overpowered, defeated, or captured. 
Mack himself, with twenty thousand men, sur- 
rendered at Ulm on the 20th of October. The 
events of the campaign were summed up with 
some exaggeration in one of Napoleon's bul- 
letins. It will serve to illustrate his history 
and character to give the text of one of these 
documents ; the one that follows is that which 
records the downfall of Mack. 

Soldiers of the Grande Armee : 

In fifteen days we have finished a campaign. Our 
intentions have been carried out: we have driven the 
troops of the House of Austria from Bavaria and re- 
established our ally on his throne. 

This army, that had so ostentatiously and impru- 
dently placed itself on our borders, is now destroyed. 

But what cares England for that ! Her object is 



122 NAPOLEON 

gained : we are no longer at Boulogne and her sub- 
sidies will be neither diminished nor increased. 

Of the hundred thousand men who made up this 
army, sixty thousand are prisoners : they will fill the 
places of our conscripts in the labours of the field. 

Two hundred guns, the whole train, ninety colours, 
all their generals are ours. Only fifteen thousand 
men have escaped. 

Soldiers ! I had prepared you for a great battle ; 
but, thanks to the bad manoeuvres of the enemy, I have 
reached equal results without taking any risk; and, — 
unprecedented event in the history of nations, — this 
result has been gained at an expense of less than fif- 
teen hundred men out of action. 

Soldiers ! this success is due to your unlimited 
confidence in your Emperor, to your patience in sup- 
porting all kinds of fatigue and privations, to your 
splendid valour. 

But we cannot rest yet. You are impatient for a 
second campaign. 

The Russian army, drawn by the gold of England 
from the furthest limits of the earth, must suffer the 
same fate. 

In this contest the honour of the French infantry is 
more especially at stake; for the second time the 
question must be decided, as already once before in 
Switzerland and in Holland, whether the French in- 
fantry is the first or the second in Europe. 

Among them are no generals from whom I have 
any glory to win. My whole anxiety shall be to ob- 
tain the victory with the least effusion of blood pos- 
sible : my soldiers are my children. 

Napoleon. 



AUSTERLITZ 



123 



Whatever may be thought of Napoleon's 
rhetoric by the reader, there is one point that 
must be kept steadily in mind : that it produced 
the results he expected. It was designed to 
inspire the morale of his troops, and it suc- 
ceeded in doing so. All ranks were full of 
confidence in the genius of their great captain, 
and the large proportion of veterans from the 
wars of the Republic steadied the dash of the 
troops with a leaven of solidity and skilled 
leadership. The victorious army with which 
Napoleon now found himself in Bavaria has 
been generally conceded to have been the finest 
he ever commanded. 

He now had the following military problem 
to face. Some one hundred and fifty miles 
or more due east, down the valley of the 
Danube, lay Vienna. Between him and the 
capital, and to the northeast in Bohemia, were 
various Austrian and Russian corps, large in 
the aggregate but not yet concentrated. To 
the southeast the Archduke Charles was re- 
tiring towards the Austrian capital from Italy, 
followed by Marshal Massena with a large 
army. A less bold general than Napoleon 
would probably have given his enemies enough 
time to mass a large army in front of Vienna, 
but the Emperor waited not one day and urged 



124 NAPOLEON 

his columns rapidly down the valley of the 
Danube. There was no serious resistance 
offered, and on the 31st of October the French 
cavalry under Murat reached the Austrian 
capital. Only eleven days had passed since 
the capitulation of Ulm three hundred miles 
away.^ From Vienna the French marched 
northwards towards Moravia, where the Emperor 
Francis and the Czar Alexander had now as- 
sembled a large army. Napoleon hoped for 
a decisive battle, and his opponents gratified 
his desire by advancing to meet him. 

The position of Napoleon, in spite of his 
great success at Ulm, was in reality very criti- 
cal. The internal affairs of France were dis- 
quieting chiefly owing to a grave financial 
crisis, but what was perhaps more important, 
the military situation was far from sound. The 
French army was now four hundred miles or 
more from its base and much weakened by 
detachments. The line of communications 
ran through southern Germany, of which the 
States professed amicable sentiments; but to 
the north Prussia was avowedly on the point 
of declaring war and had concentrated a large 
army under Marshal MoUendorf. It was evi- 

^ A large part of the French army was at Munich and be- 
yond when Ulm capitulated. 




Guard 
Cav. 



Guard ^^""-"^ %^„ 
Inf. 0UDIN0'# 



The arrows indicate the general direction of the Austro-Kussian 
"advance. The French corps are indicated, by names. Napnleon 
"was near Bernadotte and Soult. 



BOBMAY * CO.,N.V. 



Austerlitz 



AUSTERLITZ 125 

dently the policy of Russia and Austria to 
keep Napoleon's army employed in Moravia 
without coming to battle until the action of 
Prussia could take effect on his line of com- 
munications. But the impetuosity of the young 
Czar and of his advisers threw counsels of 
prudence to the winds and led him into the 
course Napoleon hoped he would adopt. 

For several days the Emperor slowly retired 
before the advancing allies, having selected a 
position near Austerlitz from which he ex- 
pected to derive great advantage. The French 
army took station there on the night of the 
ist of December, Kutusoff with the two allied 
Emperors disposing his troops on the rising 
ground opposite. Napoleon's left was solidly 
established on a hill named the Santon that 
had been well intrenched. His centre was 
strongly placed on ground that was not likely 
to tempt the enemy to a decisive attack ; but 
the rio^ht was far otherwise situated. It was 
drawn up on flat and unfavourable ground and 
appeared to the Russians weak in numbers 
and exposed. The command of this wing was 
given to the dogged Davoust, whose orders 
were to hold on to his position as long as 
possible, while at another point the Emperor 
was deciding the fortune of the day. Davoust's 



126 NAPOLEON 

wing was in reality far better placed than it 
appeared to be, and he had strong defensive 
positions on which to fall back protected by 
water and swampy ground. Having thus 
placed his right wing as a bait to the enemy, 
Napoleon crowded the corps of Soult, of Berna- 
dotte, of Oudinot, and the Imperial Guard out 
of sight behind some buildings and rising 
ground in his centre ; with these troops he 
proposed dealing the decisive stroke. 

Kutusoff arrived in front of the French 
position on the ist of December. He had an 
army of some eighty-five thousand men and 
estimated his enemy at about fifty thousand; 
in this he was wrong, for Napoleon had brought 
in several detachments by forced marches and 
had raised his numbers to about sixty-five thou- 
sand. The Russian general-in-chief decided 
to attack the weak French wing and thus to 
possess himself of the road to Vienna that lay 
behind it; he made his intention clear on the 
afternoon before the battle by moving troops 
from the strong plateau of Pratzen in his cen- 
tre down towards the hollow occupied by 
Davoust. From the moment Napoleon ob- 
served these movements he looked on the 
coming battle as already won. 

On the night before the battle occurred an 



AUSTERLITZ 127 

incident that shows with what feelings the 
first army of the Empire viewed its leader. 
Napoleon proceeded on foot to visit the out- 
posts and observe the enemy. His short 
figure, grey coat, and little cocked hat, were 
recognised by some grenadiers, who raised 
shouts of Vive V Emperetir ! reminding him 
that the 2d of December was the anniversary 
of the coronation. From man to man the 
enthusiasm spread, and soon all the long lines 
of the bivouac were up and an improvised 
illumination of twisted straw whisps burst 
out; it astonished the Russian camps as much 
as it gratified the heart of Napoleon. 

At the earliest dawn the two armies were in 
their positions for battle, and just as the first 
shots were fired the sun burst through the 
heavy winter mist. Soon the two lines were 
engaged, the Austro-Russians pressing hotly 
on the French right. Davoust disputed the 
ground fiercely, but was slowly forced back, 
a great part of the enemy descending from the 
heights at Pratzen and extending into the low 
land out beyond the French centre. At last 
Napoleon gave the signal, sta£f ofiicers dashed 
off in every direction, and from behind the 
ridge that concealed them the dense columns 
of Bernadotte and Soult marched forward on 



128 NAPOLEON 

the Russian centre and climbed the heights ; 
Oudinot with the grenadiers and part of the 
Imperial Guard followed in support. Kutusoff 
was unprepared for such an attack, his centre 
was strong by nature but was now denuded of 
troops, and the Pratzen was soon in the hands 
of the French. To regain this position was 
essential, for, with Napoleon there, the allies 
were completely cut in two. The only avail- 
able reserve was the Russian Imperial Guard, 
and this was sent in. Fierce fighting followed, 
but the French were not to be dislodged, and 
the severed right of Kutusoff rolled back de- 
feated. In the meanwhile Davoust was still 
hotly engaged with the other wing, but help 
was coming. From the heights of Pratzen 
long lines of French guns were now playing 
on the rear of the Russian left, while Davoust 
still kept up the fight in front. Thus cut off 
and surrounded there was nothing left but 
retreat. The flat ground, cut with streams and 
ponds, was bad for this purpose, and many 
of the fugitives who attempted to cross the 
frozen lake of Sastchan broke through the 
ice. Probably several thousand were thus 
drowned. 

The battle cost the allies a loss of thirty-five 
thousand men and two hundred guns, while the 



AUSTERLITZ 



129 



French reserves were not even brought into 
action and their loss was probably not more than 
fivt thousand men. Two days later the Em- 
peror Francis met Napoleon at the outposts, 
and agreed to an armistice as a preliminary of 
peace. 



CHRONOLOGY 

27 Aug., 1805. Grande Arifiee leaves Channel camps. 

14 Oct., " Munich occupied. 

20 " " Surrender of Mack at Ulm. 

31 " " Vienna occupied. 

2 Dec, " Austerlitz. 

26 " " Peace of Pressburg. 



NOTE 



Bibliographical : General. — See page 1 1 . 

In the foregoing and the succeeding chapter the military 
operations of Napoleon are taken consecutively from Ulm 
to Friedland. Political matters are left over for general 
consideration with the treaty of Tilsit. For Ulm and 
AusterUtz, see Schonhals, Der Krieg, '05, Vienna, 1874; 
Stutterheim, Bataille d^ Austerlitz^ Hamburg, 1805 (and 
numerous other editions). 



CHAPTER X 

JENA AND FRIEDLAND 

War with Prussia — Jena — Murat's March to Lubeck — Eylau 
— Friedland. 

TO present a clear impression it will be 
better to follow the first great cycle of 
wars to its conclusion, postponing till 
its termination a consideration of the political 
events and changes that accompanied it. 

A peace between France and Austria quickly 
followed Austerlitz, and after the treaty, signed 
at Pressburg on the 26th of December, the 
French troops gradually evacuated Austrian 
territory. But instead of being brought back 
to the English Channel the corps of the Grande 
Armee remained for the most part quartered 
in the South German States that were on 
friendly terms with Napoleon. The reason of 
this was that the downfall of Austria had settled 
nothing; Russia was still threatening; war with 
Prussia had long appeared probable. Hanover, 
which Napoleon had seized immediately after his 
rupture with England, was dangled as a bait be- 
fore King Frederick William's eyes, while the 

130 



JENA AND FRIEDLAND 131 

Emperor pressed on him an anti-British commer- 
cial policy. Diplomatic bickering proceeded 
through the summer of 1806, and on the ist 
of October the Prussian Ambassador at Paris 
presented a series of demands, including one 
for the withdrawal of the French troops from 
southern Germany that brought matters to a 
crisis. The demands of Prussia were rejected 
by Napoleon, who was already in the midst of 
his troops in southern Germany. 

Once more, as at Ulm, the Emperor repeated 
the strategic manoeuvre of Marengo. To under- 
stand what took place a glance at the map is 
necessary. From the French frontier to the 
capital of Prussia ran perhaps the most impor- 
tant road in all Germany, one that was to figure 
conspicuously in the history of Napoleon ; it 
led northeast from Mayence on the Rhine, 
through Erfurt and Leipzig to Berlin. Mid- 
way between the two latter places it crossed 
at right angles the river Elbe, which was de- 
fended by several large fortresses. This road 
described what was practically a straight line 
between Paris and Berlin and appeared to 
be the necessary scene of the campaign now 
about to open. 

But the Prussian generals had not yet learned 
the methods of Napoleon. Their army, of 



132 



NAPOLEON 



which the highest ranks were filled by veterans 
trained under the eye of the great Frederick, 
was confident in its machine-like precision, was 
inspired to martial ardour by the influence of 
the patriotic Queen Louisa and the Princes of 
the royal House. Young officers had whetted 
their swords on the stone steps of the French 
embassy in Berlin, and the whole army was 
animated by hatred of France and a blind con- 
fidence in its superiority. But the aged Duke 
of Brunswick, who was in command, fell into 
error. The Prussian divisions were marched 
beyond the Elbe and thence slowly advanced 
in a great semicircle stretching out on either 
side of the Mayence road. On the 5th of 
October headquarters were at Erfurt, and the 
one hundred and ten thousand men of the 
Prussian army presented a front of about ninety 
miles between Cassel and Rudolstadt, watching 
the Thuringian forest for a first glimpse of 
the enemy. 

Meanwhile what had Napoleon been doing? 
Aiming, as always, at dealing a decisive blow, 
he rapidly moved the corps that were protecting 
the French frontier, not along the Mayence- 
Berlin hne, but to the eastward through Wur- 
temberg and Bavaria, where they joined the 
troops already stationed close to the Austrian 



JENA AND FRIEDLAND 133 

border. The army, numbering about one hun- 
dred and ninety thousand men, was strongly con- 
centrated about Bamberg, and thence marched 
north and slightly east towards the corner of 
Bavaria, Saxony, and Bohemia. On the 5th 
of October the front of the French army, cover- 
ing not more than thirty-five miles, was between 
Coburg and Hof, and Napoleon, who already 
shrewdly suspected the approximate position 
of the Prussians, declared that if he could march 
unimpeded a few days more, he would be in 
Berlin first. 

The French pressed on by long days' 
marches, and a week later the outposts of the 
two armies were in touch not far from Saal- 
feld ; the French extreme left had come into 
contact with the extreme left of the Prussians ; 
the French were rapidly marching north, the 
Prussians slowly south-west. Napoleon's object 
was now to swing about towards his left so as 
to get across the great road in the rear of the 
Duke of Brunswick. This manoeuvre was suc- 
cessfully carried out, the French corps getting 
into a line roughly indicated by Saalfeld, Jena, 
and Naumburg, the main strength constantly 
tending northwards and towards the road. 

When the Duke of Brunswick discovered 
that the French army had completely turned 



134 NAPOLEON 

his left flank and was rapidly moving towards 
his line of communications, he issued orders 
for a general movement eastwards in hopes of 
being able to retreat towards the line of the 
Elbe through Jena and Naumburg; but he 
was just a few hours too late and was com- 
pelled to fight with his enemy between him 
and his line of retreat. On the 14th of Octo- 
ber were fought two battles within a few miles, 
at Jena and at Auerstadt. At Auerstadt 
Davoust with inferior numbers held his posi- 
tion all day and prevented the passage of the 
King of Prussia and the Duke of Brunswick. 
At Jena with superior numbers Napoleon 
utterly crushed Hohenlohe. The Prussian 
infantry fought well until beaten, then the 
French cavalry rode them down with ease. 
The pursuit of the defeated army by Murat 
was of an extraordinary character ; he all but 
literally galloped from Jena to Lubeck, on the 
Baltic Sea, in three weeks. With the corps 
of Lannes, Soult, and Bernadotte, together with 
a large division of cavalry, he swept up the 
remains of the Prussian army, and captured all 
the fortresses he passed. Blucher with twenty 
thousand men was the last to hold out, sur- 
rendering, after Murat had stormed Lubeck, 
on the 7th of November. In the meanwhile 



JENA AND FRIEDLAND 135 

Napoleon with the other half of the army had 
pressed on to Berlin, which he occupied on 
the 27th of October. 

This was the most decisive and brilliant in 
its results of all the campaigns of Napoleon; 
but the uncertainty of war, the fickleness of 
fortune, were demonstrated by the course of 
that which was immediately to follow. 

Russia was now as anxious to support Prus- 
sia against France as she had been to support 
Austria. But once more the allies had gone 
in singly and paid the consequences. By the 
time that Napoleon had destroyed the army 
of Prussia and occupied her capital with the 
greater part of her territory, the Russian corps 
were barely across the frontier. Napoleon 
decided not to await them but to march, even 
to Poland if necessary, and there dispose of 
these last enemies. 

During two months following Jena, French 
columns were marching steadily north and 
east from prosperous and rich central Germany 
towards the desolate plains of eastern Prussia 
and Poland. Napoleon, so as to utilize the 
political sentiments of the Poles now in hopes 
of recovering their lost independence, deter- 
mined to base himself on the line of the Vistula 
and to place his headquarters at Warsaw. 



136 NAPOLEON 

The Russian commander, Bennigsen, anxious 
to support the Prussians, moved into the coast 
provinces covering Konigsberg and operating 
towards Dantzig. These two fortresses with 
a small body of troops now represented all that 
remained of the Prussian power. 

On the 25th of December a partial engage- 
ment between the two armies took place at 
Pultusk in which the losses were heavy and 
the result indecisive. Then Napoleon and 
Bennigsen both went into winter quarters until 
early in February 1807, when the latter de- 
termined to make an attempt to crush Berna- 
dotte's corps before it could be assisted by the 
others. In this he failed ; Napoleon, rapidly 
concentrating, hoped in turn to deal a heavy 
blow at his antagonist. But the success of 
great military operations often depends on the 
most trifling details. A staff officer conveying 
dispatches to Marshal Bernadotte fell into the 
hands of the Cossacks, and Bennigsen thus 
became informed of Napoleon's plans. He 
promptly moved his army to safer positions and 
finally stood his ground and offered battle near 
the little village of Eylau. There on the 8th 
of February was fought one of the most bloody 
battles of the Empire. A raging snow storm 
impeded the first movements of the French ; 



JENA AND FRIEDLAND 137 

Marshal Augereau's corps lost its direction, ad- 
vanced to the attack diagonally, and was sur- 
rounded and annihilated by the Russians. A 
great gap was opened in the French line at 
Eylau, and Bennigsen sent forward his infantry 
to pierce it. Napoleon and his staff appeared in 
the greatest danger, but a few battalions of the 
Guard held their ground with grim desperation, 
and the Emperor, calm and unmoved, declined 
to change his position. It was necessary to 
relieve the pressure on the French centre at any 
cost and thus gain time to bring fresh troops 
up, so Murat was ordered to collect all the 
available cavalry and advance on the Russian 
centre. Seventy squadrons of dragoons and 
cuirassiers, lancers and chasseurs, about five 
thousand men, then followed that most brilliant 
of cavalry leaders through the whirls of snow 
straight for the Russian line. This remarkable 
charge of cavalry was carried a distance of 
nearly three thousand yards before it was spent ; 
it swept everything in its front, pierced com- 
pletely through the Russian centre, and gave 
Napoleon the relief he so urgently needed. 
From then on to dusk the battle was fought 
with dogged obstinacy on both sides, the French 
making but little progress. At night each 
army and each commander was beaten, thirty 



138 NAPOLEON 

thousand dead men, four thousand dead horses 
lay between them. 

Napoleon and Bennigsen both made prepara- 
tions for retreat, but the former guessed his op- 
ponent's intentions in time, countermanded his 
first orders, occupied the Russian positions 
next morning, and claimed Eylau as a victory. 
But the French army and all Europe realized 
that the victory was purely technical, and that 
Bennigsen had come very near defeating the 
invincible conqueror. Was the spell broken ? 
All through Germany, in Austria, and in the 
remotest parts of Italy, the opponents of Na- 
poleon drew breath and declared his fall was 
near. He, meanwhile, retired to winter quar- 
ters once more, and called up from every cor- 
ner of the Empire fresh contingents of men 
to stop the enormous gaps made in his ranks ; 
one of Napoleon's favourite theories was that 
numbers constituted the essential factor of 
success. 

It was not till June that the armies could be 
once more got into motion in a country where 
the spring comes so late as in Prussian Poland. 
The new campaign opened badly for the French, 
as Bennigsen held his ground successfully in a 
partial engagement at Heilsberg. Manoeuvring 
followed, and at last an opportunity arose of 



JENA AND FRIEDLAND 139 

which Napoleon took full advantage. Bennig- 
sen marched down the right bank of the Albe 
towards Konigsberg, which one half of the 
French army, under Murat, was threatening. 
At Friedland he sent a detachment to the 
further bank to occupy that town. A French 
corps, that of Lannes, deployed against the 
town and engaged the Russians. Bennigsen 
sent over more troops in support, and seeing 
no sign of French reinforcements came to the 
hasty conclusion that he had only Lannes' 
corps to deal with. He accordingly decided to 
cross the river in strength and crush this iso- 
lated opponent. But behind Lannes, in the 
wooded semicircle of hills that nearly surround 
Friedland, the Emperor, Oudinot, Ney, Victor, 
Mortier, and the Guard were hurrying on. 
Napoleon watched the Russian movements un- 
til he judged that Bennigsen had gone too far 
to withdraw, and then the whole army advanced 
to Lannes' support. The Russians were out- 
numbered nearly two to one and were in a 
wretched position to fight, massed in a con- 
tracted space where the converging fire of the 
French artillery could not fail to cause havoc, 
and with a river behind them. Bennigsen was 
utterly defeated with heavy loss, and retreated 
with his shattered army to the Russian fron- 



140 



NAPOLEON 



tier. Napoleon pursued and a few days later 
reached the little river Niemen, boundary of 
Prussia and Russia. At this point he received 
overtures for peace from the Czar Alexander, 
which he accepted, and it was agreed that the 
two Emperors should meet in a raft moored in 
midstream close to the town of Tilsit. This 
famous interview, which will be dealt with in 
the following chapter, marks the close of the 
first great cycle of the wars of the Empire, 
that which was marked by nearly unclouded 
success. 







CHRONOLOGY 


26 Dec, 


1805. 


Treaty of Pressburg. 


Feb., 


1806. 


Invasion of Naples by Mass^na. 


March, 


({ 


Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples. 


July, 


C( 


British victory at Maida. 


12 " 


(( 


Confederation of the Rhine formed. 


I Oct., 


li 


War between Prussia and France. 


14 ^' 


(I 


Jena and Auerstadt. 


27 " 


a 


Napoleon occupies Berlin. 


7 Nov. 


ti 


Murat storms Lubeck. 


8 Feb., 


1807. 


Eylau. 


10 June, 


iC 


Heilsberg. 


14 " 


i( 


Friedland, 



JENA AND FRIEDLAND 141 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 11. 

The invasion of Naples is not dealt with, though it will 
be alluded to later; see also Helfert, K'dnigin Karolina^ 
Vienna, 1878. 

For the preceding chapter see, Foucart, Campagne de 
Prusse et de Pologne, Paris, 1882-87 ; Von Lettow-Vorbeck, 
Der Krieg von 06-07 , Berlin, 1891-96 ; Y^i^^^ NapokorC s 
Ca?npaign in Poland^ London, 1901. 



CHAPTER XI 

NAPOLEONIC POLICY 
1806-1808 

Napoleon's Ambition — Fall of the Germanic Empire — War 
and Finance — Tilsit — Commercial War on England — 
Copenhagen — Junot occupies Lisbon — Continental Policy 
— Spanish Intrigue — Occupation of Madrid — Joseph 
Bonaparte King of Spain. 

IT is now time to consider the questions of 
policy that underlay the wars we have just 
followed, and that soon drove Napoleon to 
new and less fortunate enterprises. And first 
the personal element, the man, must engage 
attention. His successes, his ambitions, his 
plans, were immoderate ; they were the result 
of an insensate craving to satisfy the selfish 
appetites of a gigantic intellect. The good of 
others was with Napoleon nothing more than 
a means for attaining some personal end, and 
France was rather the instrument than the 
object of his achievements. 

To Cromwell and to Washington, even in a 
way to Caesar, their country had been a suf- 
ficient world of action ; but Bonaparte's imagi- 

142 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 143 

nation ever soared to fresh fields of conquest 
The Corsican lieutenant of artillery had made 
France his, and now stretched his hand over 
Europe; — had he made Europe his, nothing 
can be more certain than that he would thence 
have risen to the conquest of Asia or America. 
He was the embodiment of man struggling to 
better himself as conceived by Utilitarian or 
Darwinian philosophers, and the field of am- 
bition in which he strove for existence was 
only bounded by planetary space. Nor was 
his aggressiveness veiled, it was the man him- 
self, and came out in all his acts. In his bulle- 
tins and familiar soldier's talk he used the most 
offensive language towards his opponents, spar- 
ing not even a woman such as Queen Louisa 
of Prussia. In his diplomatic encounters he 
showed no greater generosity. When his op- 
ponent was down he took from him everything 
he could, and even when possible, more than 
was bargained for. Thus it was after the treaty 
of Pressburg that followed Austerlitz. By the 
terms of peace Napoleon extorted every cession 
of territory and of money he could ; yet he 
took more in the months that followed. Hav- 
ing by the terms of the treaty increased the 
South German States, especially Bavaria, at the 
expense of Austria, he subsequently proceeded 



144 .NAPOLEON 

to form a south and west German body which 
he called the Confederation of the Rhine and 
took under his Protectorate. Bavaria and 
Wurtemberg which he now raised to the rank 
of kingdoms, with Westphalia later, were the 
principal among the numerous German States 
that either through necessity or ambition joined 
the new Confederation. But these States had 
been component parts of the Germanic body or 
Germanic Holy Roman Empire of which the 
head was the Emperor Francis of Hapsburg- 
Lorraine. The Empire had long been a weak 
and tottering institution, this thrust of Napoleon 
overthrew it ; for the Emperor Francis there- 
upon issued a declaration announcing the dis- 
solution of the Germanic Empire and his 
assumption of the style of Francis first heredi- 
tary Emperor of Austria. 

There was another feature of Napoleon's 
system of politics that became strongly empha- 
sized immediately after Austerlitz: this was 
that he intended war to be self-supporting. 
Heretofore in European politics war had been 
an abnormal condition entailing abnormal ex- 
penditure on the country waging it, with this 
consequence, that on a peace, armaments were 
reduced. With Napoleon all this was changed. 
After Austerlitz the French battalions were 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 145 

not reduced by one man ; the army was to its 
master what the tool is to the craftsman, and 
he would not admit of its efficiency being 
diminished. 

At the same time it appeared in every way 
contrary to Napoleon's interests that the abnor- 
mal charge for maintaining this great army 
should be borne by France. He consequently 
entered on the policy of quartering on his 
enemies if possible, otherwise on his allies, 
large bodies of troops which they were called 
on to maintain and in many cases to pay. For 
seven years, 1806-13, the greater part of Ger- 
many thus served as pasture ground, and so evil 
and burdensome was the system that even the 
placid people of that prosperous country were 
nearly driven into open rebellion. 

When the victory of Friedland forced his 
last great continental antagonist to confess 
defeat. Napoleon touched the summit of his 
power. The days of the struggling consulate 
appeared long past. Already after Austerlitz 
a great change had come over him physically. 
He was no longer the lean, intriguing Corsican, 
struggling to reach the front rank, but had 
filled out and assumed a better satisfied cor- 
poral aspect. He had now established his 
equality with the greatest sovereigns of Europe. 



146 NAPOLEON 

Eighteen months later, at Tilsit, equality no 
longer satisfied him, and he decided to divide 
the hegemony of the Continent with the Czar, 
providing that sovereign would consent to 
follow his policy against Great Britain. France 
and Russia could clearly dictate terms, for 
Prussia was reduced to a secondary rank, while 
Austria alone retained a claim to military 
power. It was on this basis that Napoleon 
framed his policy at Tilsit. He was prepared 
to be friendly with Russia. Of Alexander he 
claimed no territory, save the little island of 
Corfu; all he asked was co-operation in his 
struggle against England. He took pains to 
charm the Czar, and succeeded, for his fascina- 
tion could be as great as his invective was 
brutal. Alexander agreed to all that Napoleon 
asked of him, was content to see peace made 
at the expense of Prussia, and was repaid by 
gaining a free hand to take Finland from 
Sweden and various provinces from Turkey. 
The Czar begged hard for his ex-ally, King 
Frederick William, but Napoleon was bent on 
crushing the Prussian monarchy under his 
heel. By the terms of peace Prussia was not 
only despoiled of much territory, but was also 
charged with an enormous war indemnity, 
pending payment of which French troops were 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 147 

to occupy Berlin and her most fruitful prov- 
inces. So loose were the terms of the treaty 
that Prussia remained saddled with the French 
occupation until after the great catastrophe of 
November — December 181 2. 

But the point of greatest interest in the 
agreement arrived at by the two Emperors was 
that which concerned Great Britain. Alexan- 
der, glad to pay for Austerlitz and Friedland 
at so little direct cost, fascinated by the 
cajoleries of the great captain, agreed to turn 
against his ancient ally. This part of the 
negotiations was intended to be kept secret 
for the present, but the British Cabinet secured 
information and determined to forestall a pro- 
jected move of the two great continental 
Powers. Instead of accepting a proposal for 
the mediation of Russia with a view to a 
general peace, the government of King George 
sent an expedition to Copenhagen to seize the 
Danish fleet. 

This event (September 1807) rendered pros- 
pects of a peace with Great Britain even more 
remote, it ruined Napoleon's naval projects, 
and it prompted him to a counterstroke at 
England. Nearly every country of the Con- 
tinent except Sweden and Turkey was now 
closed to British trade. But in Portugal her 



148 NAPOLEON 

commerce found free outlet, and Napoleon de- 
termined, as an offset to Copenhagen, to close 
the Portuguese ports to Great Britain. To 
effect this, military action became necessary, 
and a small army under General Junot was 
marched through Spain and occupied Lisbon 
at the end of November 1807. The Portuguese 
royal family fled to Brazil. 

This incursion into Portugal, though it ap- 
peared merely a counterstroke for the British 
seizure of the Danish fleet, was in reality an 
integral part of a vast scheme which Napoleon's 
mind had long been maturing. The war of 
1805 h^d drawn him from the Channel; Tra- 
falgar and Copenhagen had deprived him of 
the naval strength he required, and the invasion 
of England had faded into the background of 
possibilities. But though invasion was no 
longer possible, the commercial attack was; 
if Napoleon could no longer march an army 
to London, he might yet hope to starve and 
ruin her. His first step towards effecting this 
was when the conquest of Prussia gave him 
the power to stretch his hand over the north- 
western seaports. In November 1806 he 
issued the famous Decree of Berlin, whereby 
it was ordered that no port in the French 
Empire or its dependencies should receive any 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 



149 



ship coming from Great Britain or any of her 
colonies, that Great Britain herself was in a 
state of blockade, and that all British goods 
were seizable wherever found. To this the 
British reply was an Order in Council practi- 
cally forbidding neutral vessels to trade except 
through British ports, and later proclaim- 
ing all French ports blockaded. Napoleon 
answered this by declaring all neutral vessels 
carrying British papers denationalized and 
seizable. This last decree was in November 
1807. The whole force of Napoleon's intellect 
was now turned towards making this extraor- 
dinary economic policy effective. He had not 
only to devise means whereby English cottons 
and colonial products should not be smuggled 
through his extensive cordons of custom house 
officers, but he had to devise means of bringing 
the whole of the Continent into his policy, for 
it was only on the largest scale that it could 
be effective. Having secured the Czar's promise 
of co-operation, having a strong hold on the 
coasts of the Baltic and North Seas, his atten- 
tion was now more closely directed to the 
south. Italy was his as far as the Straits of 
Messina, for the treaty of Pressburg had added 
Venetia to the kingdom of Italy; the Papal 
dominions were virtually under French control; 



I50 NAPOLEON 

the Bourbons had been driven from Naples, 
where Joseph Bonaparte was installed king 
in 1806. The treaty of Tilsit had given Corfu 
to France, and now, in the winter of 1807-08, 
Napoleon was revolving plans whereby, acting 
from that island and in concert with Russia, 
he might arrange to partition Turkey and 
thence launch a Franco-Russian expedition 
through Persia towards India. These schemes 
were inordinately vast, and their execution 
never passed the initial stages; but leaving 
the eastern for the western basin of the Med- 
iterranean there was another detail of the 
Napoleonic plans that required attention but 
appeared to offer little or no difficulty. 

Junot's march to Lisbon in the autumn of 
1807 has already been noticed. Portugal had 
fallen without resistance and the capital had 
not fired a shot to stop the paltry force that 
captured it. Spain appeared as rotten, as 
effete, as Portugal. The king, Charles IV., 
was perhaps the most inept of all Bourbon sov- 
ereigns, and to make matters worse the Queen 
and the favourite Godoy were little better than 
the King. In 1795 Spain had abandoned the 
struggle against the French Republic and ever 
since had dragged by her side in an uncon- 
vinced and ineffective alliance. But the people 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 



151 



and even the minister tired of French dicta- 
tion, and in 1806, shortly before Jena, Godoy 
showed clear indications that he only awaited 
a favourable opportunity to turn against Napo- 
leon. The Spaniard chose his time badly; the 
Corsican played his game more deliberately. 
He wanted the full use of the Spanish naval 
resources against England, he viewed with con- 
tempt the Bourbon occupant of the throne, 
he did not contemplate as possible a serious 
resistance from Spain to the conqueror of 
Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Without show- 
ing his hand very clearly, without perhaps quite 
deciding what his precise policy should be, he 
pushed on supporting columns behind Junot's 
army of Portugal, and gradually established a 
considerable force in the northern provinces 
of Spain. 

In the early months of 1808 Napoleon showed 
his hand more clearly; a large French army was 
now moving towards Madrid, and Murat was 
given supreme command. This steadily in- 
creasing pressure applied by Napoleon proved 
too much for the Bourbons, dislodged them 
from their throne. There were recriminations 
between Charles IV., his son Ferdinand, and 
his minister Godoy. Popular discontent broke 
out. Charles IV. resigned. A mob nearly mas- 



152 NAPOLEON 

sacred Godoy who was barely saved by the 
French troops. Murat, who had quietly in- 
stalled himself at Madrid, declined to recognise 
Ferdinand as king, and Charles repented his 
hasty abdication. Father and son proceeded 
to Bayonne to lay their case before Napoleon, 
and he by menace and cajolery obtained from 
them a renunciation of their rights in his favour. 
Spain was now apparently his, and he appointed 
to its throne his brother Joseph, giving in turn 
that of Naples to Murat. 

It was on the 5th of May that the renuncia- 
tion of his crown by Charles IV. gave Napoleon 
Spain with a stroke of the pen, but the people 
of Madrid had demonstrated that they were no 
willing parties to the shameful transaction of 
their king three days earlier. A street insur- 
rection broke out which Murat subdued with 
much trouble and punished severely. It was 
the precursor of a national rising continued for 
five years and that ended in success. France 
had hitherto conquered by means of a national 
army ; she was now to be met with the same 
arm she had so triumphantly used and abused. 

French troops were now advancing in every 
direction, but a provisional government or- 
ganised resistance, and within a few weeks the 
imperial arms received the most decisive check 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 153 

they had yet met with. South of Madrid the 
French general Dupont allowed his communi- 
cations to be cut, and failing to force a passage 
was compelled to surrender with twenty thou- 
sand men at Baylen (July 19). A few weeks 
later a similar disaster occurred in Portugal. 
A British force under Sir Arthur Wellesley, 
afterwards Duke of Wellington, landed close 
to Lisbon, fought and defeated Junots army 
(Vimiero, August 21). A capitulation was 
signed at Cintra a few days later, whereby the 
French evacuated Portugal. 

These unexpected reverses roused Napoleon. 
His army in Spain was made up mostly of new 
levies ; he now ordered several corps of the 
Grande Armee to leave their cantonments in 
Germany for the peninsula. Other corps were 
formed in France and hurried to the frontier, 
and Napoleon determined to take command in 
person. He joined his troops in November; 
they were then concentrated between the Ebro 
and the Pyrenees, faced by several Spanish 
armies for the most part poorly drilled, insuffi- 
ciently equipped, and miserably led. A few 
rapid strokes to the right and left shattered re- 
sistance, and Napoleon marched irresistibly 
on Madrid, which he entered on the 4th of 
December. 



154 NAPOLEON 

This first success was illusive. There were 
several peculiarities that rendered campaigning 
in Spain a far more difficult task than in Italy 
or Germany. The country was poor and troops 
had to be accompanied by long convoys ; the 
peasantry, fanaticized by the priests, took up 
arms, cut off detached parties, and isolated the 
French columns ; the mountain ranges of the 
peninsula ran generally east and west, that is 
across the line of invasion, making movements 
slow and arduous, and affording continuous 
openings for rapid flank attacks up the val- 
leys. While Napoleon was marching south on 
Madrid, a British army under Sir John Moore 
was moving east from Lisbon and nearly suc- 
ceeded in striking the French line of communi- 
cations in the neighbourhood of Valladolid. 
No sooner did Napoleon realize the presence 
of this new enemy than he turned all his 
available force towards the British, and taking 
command pushed forward to attack Sir John 
Moore. It was now winter and the mountain 
passes were covered with snow, but the French 
pressed on rapidly, and the British general, 
heavily outnumbered, hastily retreated. He 
eventually reached Corunna after severe losses 
and hardships, and there succeeded in embark- 
ing his army but lost his life in the fighting. 



NAPOLEONIC POLICY 155 

Napoleon had not pursued the British as far 
as Corunna ; midway important dispatches had 
reached him from Paris. Handing over the 
command to Marshal Soult he took a few per- 
sonal attendants, and galloping as fast as saddle 
and post-horses could carry him, unexpectedly 
reached his capital on the 23d of January 
1809. 



CHRONOLOGY 

Treaty of Tilsit. 

Capture of Danish fleet at Copenhagen. 

Junot occupies Lisbon. 

Madrid riot. 

Bayonne. Charles IV. resigns his crown. 

Surrender of Dupont at Baylen. 

Junot defeated at Vimiero. 

Interview of Erfurt. 

Napoleon joins army in Spain. 

Occupies Madrid. 

Napoleon returns to Paris. 

NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 1 1 . 

For Tilsit and the relations of France and Russia there 
is no authority comparable to Vandal's Napoleon et Alex- 
andre^ Paris, 1896. For the Continental blockade see 
Mahan, Influence of Sea Power ^ London, 1892. For 



7 July, 


1807. 


Sept., 


<< 


30 Nov., 


« 


2 May, 


1808. 


5 " 


ti 


19 July, 


it 


21 Aug., 


te 


Sept., 


(( 


Nov., 


a 


4 Dec, 


(( 


23 Jan., 


1809. 



156 NAPOLEON 

Spain, Oman, Peninsular War^ London, 1902-03 (two vol- 
umes only, to 1809) ; or the classic but not altogether 
reliable Napier, Peninsular War, 

Rose is good to consult on France and Great Britain 
after Tilsit, and Fisher on Germany. 

The war in Spain will not be followed after this chapter, 
as Napoleon took no further personal part in it ; only such 
brief allusions to it will be made as will suffice to keep the 
reader abreast with the general progress of affairs. 



CHAPTER XII 

WAGRAM 

Austrian Jealousy — French Discontent — Napoleon leaves 
Spain — War with Austria — Aspern and Essling — Dis- 
possession of the Pope — Wagram — Peace. 

THERE were two causes that brought 
Napoleon suddenly back from Spain 
to Paris, one general and widely known, 
the other of a more intimate and obscure char- 
acter. The first of these was connected with 
the relations of France with the great Powers 
of north-eastern Europe ; to understand it we 
must go back a little and pick up the thread of 
policy spun by Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807. 

With Prussia reduced to impotence and 
largely occupied by French troops, there were 
now as military factors but two Powers in the 
north-east, Russia and Austria. The friendly 
advances of Napoleon to the former indicated 
beyond question that his policy in that quar- 
ter would turn on the balancing of these two 
Powers one against the other. And further, his 
friendship with Russia was held at Vienna to 

157 ' 



158 NAPOLEON 

imply hostility to Austria. The inference was 
obvious and told more deeply owing to the 
repeated humiliations Austria had met with, 
though Napoleon would doubtless have been 
pleased to remain at peace with her. From 
the time when Eylau opened anew the possi- 
bility of shaking off the Napoleonic yoke, the 
Cabinet of Vienna made great efforts to re- 
organize its army and resources. 

But the Emperor's relations with Alexan- 
der, though outwardly friendly, had already 
developed slight points of friction, and in the 
summer of 1808 an interview between the two 
was arranged for the discussion of their in- 
terests. It took place at Erfurt. Here amid 
much pomp, surrounded by the princes of Ger- 
many and of the French Empire, they privately 
debated the questions of Poland, of Prussia, of 
Great Britain, and in short the whole political 
field from St. Petersburg to Cadiz and from 
Norway to India. The nature of these con- 
ferences was not generally known, and it was 
only a few of the best placed and most astute 
observers, such as Talleyrand, who detected the 
fundamental incompatibility of views between 
Napoleon and Alexander that must sooner or 
later break down their alliance. The general 
opinion was that France and Russia were in 



WAG RAM 



^S9 



perfect accord, and that jointly they could con- 
trol the whole of continental Europe. In reality 
the Czar chafed at the pressure of the French 
Empire eastwards in Prussia, in Poland, in the 
Balkan peninsula. 

The conference at Erfurt alarmed Austria. 
Her statesmen were not sure that Napoleon 
had not given Russia a free hand against 
Sweden and Turkey as a price for her absten- 
tion from interfering against his carrying out 
some design against Austria. Was it his in- 
tention to reduce the Emperor Francis to the 
position of King Frederick William, or perhaps 
even to steal his throne, as he had that of 
Charles IV. ? There was little present ground 
for fear, yet Austria pressed her armaments for- 
ward. Napoleon declared to Count Metternich, 
Austrian ambassador at Paris, that if Austria 
armed she could never afford to disarm without 
fighting and that war must therefore follow, and 
he disclaimed, probably sincerely, all hostile 
intention. Yet the dangerous process continued 
during the autumn and winter months of 1808. 
By the beginning of 1809 Austria had gone 
so far that war was inevitable and it became 
clear that sooner or later Napoleon must leave 
Spain and return to Germany. It does not 
appear probable, however, that he would have 



i6o NAPOLEON 

abandoned the pursuit of Sir John Moore quite 
so precipitately as he did, had there not been 
another matter of importance that required his 
presence in Paris without delay. 

In 1799 Bonaparte's advent to power had 
been eagerly supported by reasonable men of 
many shades of political opinion. His early 
steps as a ruler tended to confirm the hopes of 
those who looked to him to provide stability ; 
and even if he aimed openly at personal power, 
yet through him was introduced such sound 
administration, finance, and justice as France 
had never known. Many, therefore, viewed his 
personal rule so far as a blessing. But the 
development of Napoleon's policy after the proc- 
lamation of the Empire, after Austerlitz, after 
Jena, and especially after Tilsit, frightened 
those who dared think for themselves and whose 
insight was not obscured by apparent prosper- 
ity, large salaries and unaccustomed titles. 
Talleyrand after long directing the Ministry for 
Foreign Affairs had held back strongly from 
the Tilsit policy, and had been transferred to the 
non-political functions of High Chamberlain. 
Fouche, the ex- Terrorist and Jacobin, head of 
the secret police, thought that Napoleon was 
going too far, saw in the Spanish war the pos- 
sibility of a personal or military disaster for 



WAGRAM i6i 

the Emperor, and ever on the lookout for 
political evolutions, viewed with complacency 
an eventual vacancy of the throne and the pos- 
sible promotion of his friend, the dashing, 
popular, liberal-minded, and liberal-handed Joa- 
chim Murat, King of Naples. Nothing much 
was actually done, yet a political demonstra- 
tion of the greatest significance occurred. For 
many years Talleyrand and Fouche had been 
estranged and barely on speaking terms. One 
night, while Napoleon was toiling through the 
snow-clad passes of revolted Spain after Sir 
John Moore, these two important political per- 
sonages made their entrance at a fashionable 
reception arm in arm, and ostentatiously prome- 
naded their alliance before the astonished guests 
It was a little thing, and yet it was a great one ; 
for Talleyrand and Fouche were the two most 
delicate political weathercocks in France, and 
if they both veered together it was safe to con- 
clude there was something in the wind. 

So Napoleon thought, as he spurred and 
galloped back to Paris. He publicly disgraced 
Talleyrand; he privately admonished Fouche, 
but continued to employ him. But though on 
the surface this was the close of the incident, 
there can be little doubt when the course of 
events is noted, that Napoleon now had 



i62 NAPOLEON 

brought into stronger prominence before him 
than ever the perplexing question of the im- 
perial succession. He was now the most 
powerful sovereign of Europe; he had already 
established his fame as the greatest legislator 
and conqueror of history; yet two of his subjects 
could venture to suggest publicly that they, and 
not he, might eventually decide to whom his 
magnificent empire should revert. Josephine 
could not give him an heir; he had no faith in 
the power of any of his brothers to retain his 
throne. Yet he could not live for ever, more 
especially if continually exposing his life to the 
dangers of the battle-field. 

It was in no pleasant mood that Napoleon 
now faced the fast- approaching war with 
Austria, — a war he did not seek, from which 
he could gain little, and that interfered with 
the completion of the conquest of Spain. It 
came at the last somewhat unexpectedly. On 
the first day of April 1809, the Archduke 
Charles crossed the Bavarian frontier announc- 
ing in his proclamations that Austria was 
championing the cause of European liberty 
and calling on all Germans to rise against 
their oppressors. It was making the coura- 
geous stand of the people of Spain a text for all 
the nations of Europe. For a few days the 



WAGRAM 163 

Archduke held a great strategic advantage, 
and had he pressed forward among the scat- 
tered French corps, would probably have won 
considerable successes. Napoleon hurried on 
from Paris and by a series of rapid manoeuvres 
which he always considered the most brilliant 
he ever carried out, concentrated his corps, 
forced the passage of the Isar, and brought the 
Archduke to a general engagement at Eckmlihl. 
The interest of these operations depends on an 
examination too minute and lengthy to be fol- 
lowed out here ; all that it will be possible to 
say is that at Eckmlihl the Archduke Charles 
was severely defeated and Napoleon found 
himself, as after Ulm, on the highroad to 
Vienna. 

On the loth of May occurred a slight 
incident of which the interest is of a character 
rarely to be found in the life of Napoleon. 
The French had arrived in front of Vienna, 
and although the Archduke Charles with the 
great mass of the Austrian army was on the 
further bank of the Danube, there was an 
attempt at resistance. The invaders brought 
artillery into position and opened fire on the 
city. Napoleon was now informed that the 
young Archduchess Maria Louisa had not 
been able to leave the palace owing to illness; 



i64 NAPOLEON 

he immediately gave orders to have the guns 
trained in another direction. He probably 
little guessed that the princess for whom he 
showed this consideration would in less than 
twelve months be Empress of the French. 

The resistance of Vienna was not serious, 
and the French army quickly occupied it. 
While Napoleon was maturing a plan for 
crossing to the north side of the Danube, 
whence the Archduke Charles was watching 
his movements with a large army, he issued a 
decree annexing Rome to the Empire (May 17). 
The army was now moved a few miles east of 
Vienna, bridges were constructed, and on the 
2 1st the leading brigades began to deploy on 
the further bank between the villages of Aspern 
and Essling. At this point desperate fighting 
took place during the 21st and 2 2d. The 
Archduke Charles attacked in force ; the French 
numbers on the northern bank gradually in- 
creased until on the second day a rise of the 
Danube broke down the bridges. Then it be- 
came a question of whether the French could 
hold their ground. While engineers worked 
desperately to re-establish communications, 
Lannes and Massena held the Austrians at 
bay with dogged obstinacy, fought on till night, 
and thus enabled the troops to retreat in safety. 



Wagram 



Margrafneusiedl 




■>■•-■■ ^ Austrian Positions. 



BORMAY Ic CO.,N.Y. 



Wagram 



WAGRAM 165 

But Napoleon had lost twenty-five thousand 
men, including Marshal Lannes who was mor- 
tally wounded at the close of the day ; and 
whatever excuses there might be to offer, he 
had been defeated by the Archduke Charles. 

The French army had now retreated from the 
northern bank into the large island of Lobau, 
and the marshals whom Napoleon consulted 
were all of opinion that the retreat should be 
continued to Vienna, or at all events to the 
southern bank. Napoleon's decision admirably 
illustrates a cardinal principle of strategy. It 
is nearly invariably the rule that of two armies 
one is attacking, the other defending; one has 
the offensive, the other the defensive. So long 
as that relation holds the army on the offensive 
has the move ; that is, it may within certain 
limits choose a line of operations which its 
opponent is compelled to devise methods to 
defend. The offensive in the hands of a com- 
petent general is an immense military advan- 
tage to be retained at any cost, and for this 
reason Napoleon decided to keep his army in 
the island of Lobau rather than seek safety on 
the southern bank of the Danube. For in 
that position he still threatened Aspern and 
Essling which the Archduke could not aban- 
don ; but had he fallen back, then the offensive 



i66 NAPOLEON 

would have passed to the enemy and he would 
have been obliged to reply to whatever move 
the Archduke chose to make. 

Napoleon therefore remained cooped up with 
his army in the island of Lobau while the Aus- 
trians daily intrenched themselves along his 
front. The check was not unlike that at Eylau, 
and all Europe was eagerly on the watch for 
several weeks to see what the next move would 
be. The opponents of Napoleon plucked up 
courage, the more so as Sir Arthur Wellesley 
was once more operating in Portugal and had 
defeated Soult at Oporto. Germany appeared 
on the point of rising; the dispossessed Pope 
fulminated a degree of excommunication against 
his spoilers and had to be removed from Rome 
as a prisoner ; a British fleet and army occupied 
the island of Ischia in the bay of Naples and 
threatened Joachim Murat in his capital. 

Once more, as at Austerlitz, as at Friedland, 
Napoleon cleared a threatening situation by a 
great military stroke. At the north-west corner 
of the island of Lobau where his bridges had 
been established opposite the heavily forti- 
fied Austrian lines at Aspern and Essling, 
he placed his largest guns and opened a fierce 
bombardment. He wanted the Austrians to 
believe that he intended forcing their position 



WAGRAM 167 

by a frontal attack. In the meanwhile secret 
preparations were made for another move. On 
the night of the 4th of July bridges were 
rapidly thrown over the Danube from the 
lower or south-eastern end of the island, and 
in the early hours of the 5th, the army had 
got a footing on the northern bank in the 
Marchfeld, thus turning the Archduke's posi- 
tion at Essling. The Austrians changed front, 
and during that day there was considerable 
fighting between the two armies. On the 6th 
was fought the memorable battle of Wagram, 
in which about two hundred and fifty thousand 
men were engaged. 

The Austrians having abandoned their Ess- 
ling-Aspern position had now fallen back a 
few miles to the west. Napoleon faced them 
and made dispositions not dissimilar to those 
that had given him such a complete victory at 
Austerlitz. The Archduke's right was extended 
towards the Danube nearly opposite Vienna, 
and it was clearly to his interest not to be 
driven back at this point. There was a further 
incitement to strengthen this wing, because, if 
the opposite wing of the French could be made 
to give away. Napoleon's line of retreat through 
the island of Lobau would be compromised. 
The Emperor, divining his opponent's thoughts 



i68 NAPOLEON 

and relying on his own numerical superiority, 
decided to encourage the Archduke to attack 
this part of his line, but placed Massena, the 
most resolute and resourceful of all the mar- 
shals, in command. In the meantime the 
French right under Davoust strongly attacked 
the Austrian left. The Archduke Charles met 
with some measure of success at first ; though 
pressed by Davoust on his left, his centre held 
its ground and his right was slowly driving back 
Massena. As success began to appear possible 
on this part of the field the Austrian supports 
were gradually pushed out from the centre 
towards the right, until at last Napoleon judged 
the moment had come for the decisive move- 
ment A battery of one hundred and twenty 
guns was suddenly massed within short range 
of the Austrian centre. Bernadotte and Mac- 
donald were pushed forward and the Archduke 
found his line too weak to resist. His right 
wing was in the greatest danger of being cut 
off and separated, and there was no alternative 
but to order a retreat along the whole line. 
He drew off his army, defeated, but far from 
routed. Some fifty thousand men were killed 
and wounded, the losses being fairly equally 
divided, but though beaten the Austrians left 
behind them practically no prisoners. 



W A GRAM 169 

Shortly afterwards an armistice was con- 
cluded, and for the fourth time Austria accepted 
defeat at the hands of Napoleon. This was 
recorded in the treaty of Schonbrunn whereby 
she lost with other territory, Trieste and Illyria, 
thus becoming an inland power. But, how- 
ever humbled and weakened for the moment, 
an unexpected event a few months later gave 
the House of Hapsburg renewed importance in 
the politics of Europe. That event must be 
discussed in the next chapter. 







CHRONOLOGY 


22 April, 


1809. 


Eckmiihl. 


13 May, 




Vienna occupied. 


17 " 




Decree annexing Rome to the Empire. 


22 " 




Napoleon defeated at Aspern. 


6 July, 




Wagram. 


14 Oct., 




Treaty of Schonbrunn. 



NOTES 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 1 1 . 

For War of 1809 see Saski, Campagne de *og, Paris, 
1899. On the picturesque side, Marbot, Memoirs, Vol. II. 
For an account of Hofer and the revolt of the Tyrol, see 
Clair, Hofer et V insurrection du Tyrol, Paris, 1873. The 
Duke of Brunswick's raid through Germany has been the 
subject of Review articles. For the Austrian point of 
view see various works of Fournier and Wertheimer. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE AND THE CAMPAIGN 
OF RUSSIA 

Dynastic Question — Napoleon marries Maria Louisa — Jeal- 
ousy of Russia — Causes for War — Preparations — Cam- 
paign of Russia — Borodino — Moscow — The Retreat. 

HAVING concluded the treaty of Schon- 
brunn with Austria, Napoleon left 
Vienna for France, but he returned in 
a far different mood to that in which he had 
returned from Tilsit in 1807. Then an un- 
clouded series of successes lay behind him, and 
before him arose great schemes that were to 
lead to the glorious day when Great Britain 
should be at his feet; but now his pre- 
occupations were on a smaller scale, for the 
security of his own throne shared his thoughts 
with the overthrow of his hated enemy. 

There were many reasons for the Emperor's 
dissatisfaction. The defeat of Austria had 
proved a harder task than ever before ; at 
Essling the Archduke Charles had claimed a 
victory, at Wagram he had withdrawn his 

170 




» BOflMAY «c CO.,N.y. 



The French Empire after Wagi 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 171 

army from the field virtually intact. In Spain, 
too, a British general was proving more than 
a match for the best marshals of the Empire, 
while from one end of the Peninsula to the 
other insurrection blazed, and King Joseph 
could barely maintain himself at Madrid. 
Greatest of all his anxieties was the dynastic 
question: whose was to be the reversion of 
the imperial throne ? The idea had long been 
working in his head; the question had now 
become an acute one ; perhaps an incident 
that occurred during his stay at Vienna drove 
him finally and reluctantly to an act that he 
had first contemplated on his return from 
Egypt in 1799. While the peace negotiations 
were progressing a German student named 
Staps approached the Emperor as he was in- 
specting the guards in the court of the palace 
of Schonbrunn. His movements were sus- 
picious ; he was arrested and on him was found 
a knife that could leave no doubt as to 
his intentions. Brought before Napoleon he 
avowed, with perfect composure, his intention 
of killing him as an enemy of the human race ; 
and on the Emperor's asking him what he 
would do if he were released, he replied phleg- 
matically that he would take the earliest oppor- 
tunity of assassinating him. This courageous 



172 NAPOLEON 

student was necessarily shot, but he had 
evoked before the Emperor the spectre of 
revenge that underlay German opinion, and 
Napoleon was profoundly affected by the 
incident. 

On his return to France his resolve was 
fixed ; he had decided that there must be a 
direct heir to the Empire, and he promptly 
announced her fate to Josephine. After a 
painful scene she consented to all that was 
asked of her, and a divorce was decided on. 
The Pope refusing his consent, a somewhat 
irregular form was gone through by the com- 
plaisance of a committee of cardinals, but had 
Napoleon pronounced the decree of his own 
will and authority it is not likely that any one 
would have dared question its efficacy. 

In the meanwhile it was necessary to find 
a suitable consort for the Emperor and the 
aUiance between France and Russia imme- 
diately suggested the Grand Duchess Anna, 
sister of the Czar. Informal overtures were 
made at St. Petersburg ; they met with doubt- 
ful answers ; it appeared possible that an 
eventual no would be the result, and this was 
an aflFront Napoleon could not bear to face. 
Just at this delicate moment Austrian diplo- 
macy, now under the wary guidance of Count 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 173 

Metternich, succeeded in suggesting the Arch- 
duchess Maria Louisa, who in point of age 
was far more suitable than the young Russian 
princess. Metternich, whom the Emperor had 
liked as ambassador, promptly seized the 
opportunity, placed it beyond doubt that a 
favourable reply would be given to any proposal 
made, and secured this enormous politico- 
matrimonial prize for his master's daughter. 

The rapid conduct of the preliminaries, the 
pomp and magnificence of the ceremonies, 
the effusions of the French and Austrian 
courts, the gratification of Napoleon with his 
Hapsburg bride, the amicable married life that 
ensued, — all these are matters of which the 
details can find no space here. It is the grim 
reverse of the medal that must be dwelt on, 
the political aspects of the marriage, the so- 
called reasons of State that made the calling 
of one child into existence the cause for the 
destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives! 

Metternich had come into power at the 
moment when Austria had touched her lowest 
point. He was determined to restore her for- 
tunes, and to do that he saw clearly that she 
must not again bear the brunt of war, but, 
leaving that to others, quietly prepare to throw 
in her sword when next the scale balanced 



174 NAPOLEON 

and her intervention might be decisive. He 
followed up the French marriage closely, 
anxious to profit, clearly perceiving that France 
must lean either on Russia or on Austria, and 
already convinced that the Czar and Napoleon 
were fast drifting apart. 

Two new and grave causes of disagreement 
had arisen between France and Russia as a con- 
sequence of the war of 1809. One was the sud- 
den manner in which Napoleon had dropped the 
proposal for marrying the Grand Duchess Anna, 
the other was of an even more serious char- 
acter. At the peace of 1807, partly to reward 
the Poles who had long served France, partly 
to obtain a political support in the north-east. 
Napoleon had formed of Prussian Poland the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw under the rule of his 
ally, the King of Saxony. This was virtually 
reconstituting Polish independence and caused 
great uneasiness to the Czar. When the war 
of 1809 broke out, Napoleon called on Alex- 
ander as his ally to place an army in the field. 
This the Czar did but in an inefficient way that 
did nothing to help Napoleon's operations. 
The Poles of the Grand Duchy however, ably 
led by Poniatowski, made a strong diversion 
in Galicia, and Napoleon duly rewarded them 
with a large slice of Austrian Poland when 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 175 

peace was signed after Wagram. Nothing 
could have been more calculated to alarm and 
alienate the Czar, who was now declaredly 
offended at the course of French policy. The 
year 18 10 was not old before it was common 
report that a war between the two great 
empires must surely ensue, and it appears that 
from that date both Napoleon and Alexander 
began quietly to make preparations for the 
gigantic struggle all felt was coming. 

But in its essential aspect this great war 
arose from Napoleon's policy of the continental 
blockade. For a brief moment it looked as 
though that policy might meet with success. 
In 18 10 British funds fell to 65, commer- 
cial ruin appeared imminent, bread was at 
famine prices, the Tory Cabinet was falling 
to pieces. Wellington's generalship probably 
saved his country from a humiliating peace. 
Driven from Spain by Massena he fell back 
on the lines of Torres Vedras in front of Lisbon 
and there successfully stopped the French ad- 
vance to the sea. His foresight and strategy 
had turned the scale in the Spanish war, for 
from this moment the Anglo-Spanish position 
grew steadily stronger, and it may be said with 
little exaggeration that the lines of Torres 
Vedras mark one of the great turning-points 



176 NAPOLEON 

in Napoleonic history. For it was essentially 
the commercial necessities of the war against 
Great Britain that led to the rupture between 
France and Russia in 181 2. Even in northern 
Germany, — notwithstanding armies of custom- 
house officers, repressive and inquisitive laws, 
wholesale burnings and destroyings, — British 
goods still found a market, though at exorbitant 
rates. The Baltic trade was still carried on 
under the neutral flag, and Russia, in defiance 
of the continued representations of the French 
ambassador, did not defend herself very strenu- 
ously against the importation of British luxuries. 
The court party at St. Petersburg constantly 
opposed the French policy, and Alexander was 
easily convinced that he must arm and prepare 
to struggle against Napoleon's dictation. 

In the spring of 181 1 both empires were 
openly preparing for war, yet in Paris all 
appeared prosperous. Never had Napoleon 
enjoyed the splendour of reigning as he did 
at this period, and his last wish was gratified 
when, on the 20th of March 181 1, the Empress 
Maria Louisa gave birth to a son whom he 
named King of Rome. The title of this ill- 
fated child, taken from what was now the 
second city of the Empire, was reminiscent of 
the King of the Romans, the appointed succes- 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 177 

sor to the crown of the Germanic Roman 
Empire that Napoleon had destroyed. 

In the early part of 181 2 came the long- 
expected crisis in the relations of France and 
Russia. Napoleon summoned Alexander to 
carry out his obligations and exclude British 
commerce; elusive answers were returned, and 
the troops received marching orders. Napoleon 
had often declared that an invasion of Russia 
was a foolhardy undertaking, and that he would 
never, as Charles XII. had, lead an army to 
destruction in the steppes. He had always dis- 
liked the enterprise, and it was only the alter- 
native of seeing the continental blockade policy 
fail that drove him into it. His preparations 
were of the most elaborate nature ; the army he 
assembled was gigantic. In 181 1 the move- 
ment of these masses from France, Germany, 
and Italy towards Poland and Russia had begun. 
Every little detail of organization and especially 
of transport received the Emperor's personal 
attention. Austria was summoned to affirm her 
alliance by placing an army in the field, and 
sent thirty thousand men to the frontier under 
Schwarzenberg ; this body formed Napoleon's 
extreme right. Unfortunate Prussia was com- 
pelled, at the point of the sword, also to furnish 
a body of troops which, together with a French 



lyS NAPOLEON 

corps under the command of Marshal Mac- 
donald, was to operate along the Baltic and 
form the extreme left. In the centre came the 
vast hosts that Napoleon in person was to lead. 
The old corps of the Grande Armee, under such 
leaders as Davoust, Ney, Oudinot, St. Cyr, Bes- 
sieres, Junot, Victor; the massed cavalry, chas- 
seurs, lancers, dragoons, and cuirassiers under 
the King of Naples; the Westphalians under 
King Jerome; the Italians under Prince Eu- 
gene ; the Poles under Poniatowski ; the Saxons, 
the Bavarians, the magnificent divisions of the 
Old and Young Guard, with its veteran bodies 
of grenadiers and voltigeurs and its superb horse 
artillery and cavalry, — all made up a central 
army of more than three hundred thousand 
men. Including the flanking armies and the 
supports that followed the main columns, it is 
calculated that over five hundred thousand 
men marched into Russia that summer. 

As had been the case in 1807 it was well on 
in June before active operations became pos- 
sible. Napoleon and Maria Louisa made a 
short stay at Dresden, capital of their ally, the 
King of Saxony ; there they met the Emperor 
and Empress of Austria, with many of the 
Princes of Germany. Thence the Emperor 
proceeded to join his army whose columns 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE i 



79 



were already converging on the Niemen. The 
French army crossed that river, nearly one thou- 
sand miles from the frontiers of France, on the 
24th of June 181 2. Napoleon hoped to be 
opposed, to crush the Russian generals with 
his superior numbers, and to conclude a prompt 
peace without advancing far ; but in all this he 
was disappointed. The advance of the French 
was opposed only by Cossacks or light cavalry, 
the Russians showed no sign of effective resist- 
ance. On the 28th Napoleon reached Wilna, 
and so disinclined was he to plunge further into 
the half-desert country beyond that he stayed 
there three weeks hoping for some arrange- 
ment But Alexander gave no sign; he had 
long foreseen the situation that now faced him, 
and both he and his advisers believed that 
Napoleon could be defeated. More than two 
hundred thousand Russians were in the field, 
but the Czar had decided not to rely on his 
troops alone, but also on the nature of his coun- 
try. From the Niemen to Moscow was a dis- 
tance of some seven hundred miles through 
thinly peopled steppes in which supplies could 
only be obtained during the summer months. 
Moscow was nearly two thousand miles from 
Paris, and between them lay hostile Europe ; 
was it possible that Napoleon could maintain 



i8o NAPOLEON 

himself there? Such was the Czar's reasoned 
attitude, and the Russian armies were given 
orders not to engage, but to fall back before 
the French advance, until a favourable oppor- 
tunity should arise. 

Finding the occupation of Wilna fruitless, 
Napoleon advanced into the interior of Russia, 
and after an action with the enemy's rear guard 
occupied Smolensk on the i8th of August. 
His line was now extremely extended; his 
transport arrangements had broken down ; the 
army was much disorganized. Yet, against 
the feeling of all the marshals, he decided that 
the war must be brought to a conclusion by a 
decisive move and ordered the advance to 
Moscow. 

The Czar now departed from his policy of 
retreat, for it was impossible and impolitic to 
resist the clamour of the Russian army to fight ; 
it was decided to make a stand before Moscow 
and Kutusoff selected a strong position barring 
the road at Borodino on the Moskva. Here 
on the 7th of September the two armies met, 
the French numbering rather more, the Rus- 
sians rather less than one hundred and twenty 
thousand men. The fighting was of a des- 
perate character and might have ended in a 
decisive victory for Napoleon had he consented 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE i8i 

to employ the Guard ; but he probably already 
viewed his position so far from France with 
secret anxiety and would not risk impairing 
the efficiency of that splendid body. As it was, 
a bare victory w^^s won at the frightful cost of 
not less than thirty thousand men to each side, 
and Kutusoff retreated during the night, leaving 
Moscow at the mercy of the French. 

Napoleon entered the ancient capital of 
Russia on the 14th of September and there 
awaited once more proposals for peace from 
Alexander. But they came not, and Moscow 
itself was burned down by incendiaries. It 
was difficult to feed the army from day to day, 
and the Cossacks made foraging difficult. The 
total of the Grande Armee after its losses in 
detachments and in action was barely ninety 
thousand men. The King of Naples was hard 
pressed to maintain his line of outposts against 
Kutusoff, and suffered one severe reverse. Au- 
tumn was now nearly spent and to delay longer 
was madness ; on the i8th of October Napoleon 
began his retreat. He attempted to follow a 
road to the south of that by which he had ad- 
vanced, so as to pass through country not yet 
wasted by war. But Kutusoff barred the way, 
and for some days there was heavy fighting and 
marching. It appears probable that Napoleon 



i82 NAPOLEON 

could have forced a passage, but he dared not 
draw too largely on his reserves of ammunition 
and abandoned the road through Kalouga to 
return to that by which he had advanced, past 
the ghastly fields of Borodino, where the remains 
of thousands of their unburied comrades greeted 
the retreating troops. In the first week of 
November, when midway to Smolensk, the 
Grande Armee was suddenly struck by the first 
wave of the Russian winter. The roads became 
frozen sheets of ice and in a week nearly all the 
horses perished. The cavalry was dismounted 
and could no longer patrol and ward off the 
Cossacks; many of the guns had to be aban- 
doned, and there was no artillery to fight a big 
battle ; the convoy was in large part unhorsed, 
and the army's supplies had to be abandoned. 
Food had been scanty enough from the first, 
but now the soldiers had little else than what 
they could find in the desolate villages they had 
already plundered in their advance. The ma- 
rauders were cut down and captured by the 
Cossacks, and the army began to melt at a 
frightful rate. There was nothing to do now 
but to press forward, giving Kutusoff no time 
to catch up the fugitives before they reached 
Smolensk. At that point were large maga- 
zines, and there Napoleon hoped he would be 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 183 

able to restore order and perhaps take winter 
quarters. 

But the disintegration and demoralization of 
the starving army made such alarming progress 
that Napoleon was only able to stay a few hours 
at Smolensk. The first column of the fugitives 
to reach the town threw themselves on the 
magazines, and, before the last passed out, 
Smolensk had been completely pillaged and 
gutted. Just beyond Smolensk Kutusoff suc- 
ceeded in throwing his leading division across 
the road, cutting off the French rear guard 
under Ney. The marshal succeeded in hold- 
ing his ground all day, crossed the Dnieper on 
the ice during the night, made a long detour, 
and finally rejoined the army a few days later; 
but his corps had dwindled away to less than 
a hundred men. The army was now reduced 
to some fifteen thousand men ; it presented an 
appalling spectacle of misery and appeared 
doomed. At its head marched Napoleon clad 
in furs and supporting himself with a stick, his 
face covered with a beard, his expression set 
but curiously placid. Behind him marched a 
new formed corps in which the rank and file 
were captains or lieutenants, and officers of the 
highest rank acted as majors and captains. 
Then on the road came a few harnessed wag- 



i84 NAPOLEON 

ons with the Emperor's papers and war chest, 
and behind them a long column of men in 
which only here and there was there any sem- 
blance of alignment or discipline. Towards the 
end came the stragglers, unarmed, limping, half 
frozen, some wandering away with ravenous 
looks, others dropping by the roadside. Thus 
marched the army in several divisions from 
Smolensk westwards. 

Between Smolensk and the river Berezina, 
a few days' march distant, was the most critical 
point of the retreat. To the north of Smolensk, 
Oudinot and Victor had been operating to 
cover the line of communications against a 
Russian army under Wittgenstein. They were 
now retreating before him to join Napoleon, 
with some eighteen thousand men in fair 
fighting condition. So here were two French 
armies converging on the Berezina, one from 
the east the other from the north-east, each 
with a superior Russian force in hot pur- 
suit. But there was a third Russian army 
marching from a totally different direction, 
the south ; that army under the command of 
Tchitchagof was on the further side of the 
Berezina and reached its southern bank just 
in time to oppose the passage of the French. 
To make matters worse for Napoleon the 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 185 

wave of cold was now spent, a thaw had set 
in, the ice was broken up, and the rivers were 
impassable. 

To steal apassage across the Berezina between 
the three converging Russian armies was now 
the only means of escape, and Napoleon solved 
the problem on familiar lines. He demon- 
strated ostentatiously at the point where he did 
not mean to cross, and thus persuaded Tchitcha- 
gof to draw off his troops from the point he 
had decided on. Victor's and Oudinot's corps 
were drawn up so as to hold off Wittgenstein 
and Kutusoff, and the long train of fugitives be- 
gan to cross the bridges. The passage closed 
in disaster. Wittgenstein drove in the French 
rear guard long before the crowd of fugitives 
had finished crossing; many of the stampeded 
mob were crowded into the river ; the Russian 
artillery found them an easy target and, most 
horrible of all, the French rear guard corps 
whose efficiency made them too precious to lose, 
received orders to force their way through to 
the bridge by firing on their disbanded and un- 
armed comrades. Last of all the bridges were 
broken down amid the despairing shrieks of 
the wretched beings who saw in them their 
only avenue to safety. The tragic passage of 
the Berezina cost the French army about eigh- 



i86 NAPOLEON 

teen thousand lives, roughly one half of its 
strength. 

No sooner had the remnant of the army 
crossed than a second and more severe cold 
wave overtook it. The Russian pursuit, save 
that of the Cossacks, was now fairly distanced, 
but Nature proved an even more terrible de- 
stroyer. The few remaining thousands struggled 
on, but hunger and cold killed the greater part. 
Every morning fewer men arose from the snowy 
bivouacs than had lain down the night before. 
Advancing supports fared no better than the 
exhausted men who had marched the whole 
weary way from Moscow. Two regiments of 
light horse of the Neapolitan Royal Guard, 
freshly arrived from the south, were nearly en- 
tirely destroyed in two nights without even 
seeing the enemy. 

At Gumbinnen near the frontier Napoleon 
decided to leave the army for Paris, where his 
presence was urgently required. He handed 
over the command to the King of Naples, and 
wrote the famous Twenty-ninth Bulletin of the 
Grande Arm'ee, in which he acknowledged such 
parts of the catastrophe that had overtaken him 
as it was useless to deny. But in what light did 
that great calamity, that direct and awful warn- 
ing of Nature as many thought it, appear to him 



THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE 187 

on whose shoulders was its responsibility ? He 
closed the Bulletin with the words : " The Em- 
peror has never been in better health " ! The 
awful destruction, and death, and sorrow, the 
loss of so many brave lives, all counted but as 
an incident in the personal career of a soldier 
of fortune ! 

On the 6th of December the fugitives reached 
Wilna, still numbering twenty thousand men.^ 
When Marshal Ney, the bravest of the brave, 
musket in hand, brought the rear guard in to 
Konigsberg some days later, he counted less 
than one thousand men under arms. 

^ The discrepancy in figures is only apparent. As the army 
retreated it picked up some detachments left in garrison, and 
met others advancing from the base. 





CHRONOLOGY 


2 April, 1 8 10. 


Marriage of Napoleon and Maria 




Louisa. 


July, 


Wellington retreats on lines of Torres 




Vedras. 


20 March, 181 1. 


Birth of the King of Rome. 


24 June, 18 1 2. 


French army invades Russia. 


7 Sept., 


Borodino. 


14 " 


Moscow occupied. 



i88 NAPOLEON 

1 8 Oct., 1 812. Retreat begun. 
26-29 Nov., " Passage of the Berezina. 

5 Dec, " Napoleon leaves army for Paris. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 11. 

For the negotiations and rupture between France and 
Russia see Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre. For the divorce 
and second marriage of Napoleon, see Welschinger, Le 
divorce de Napoleon, Paris, 1889; Helfert, Marie Louise, 
Vienna, 1882. For the campaign of Russia the classical but 
not very trustworthy account is that of Segur, Histoire, Paris, 
1873 ; for picturesque details see such Memoirs as Wil- 
son, Belliard, Marbot, Bausset, Bourgogne, and others; 
also among more recent writers : Margueron, Campagne de 
Russie, Paris, 1897 (only in part pubHshed) ; George, 
Napoleon^ s Invasion of Russia, London, 1899. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE STRUGGLE FOR GERMANY AND ITALY 
1813 

Effects of the Russian Catastrophe — Lutzen and Bautzen — 
Austrian Intervention — Dresden — Leipzig — Murat and 
Italy. 

THE great catastrophe of Russia had a 
twofold effect, material and moral. It 
destroyed the veteran army that had 
for so long imposed its master's will on the 
Continent, it broke the spell of invincibility 
that had so often paralyzed Napoleon's enemies. 
Schwarzenberg, who had done little or nothing, 
concluded a military convention with the Rus- 
sian general and withdrew his troops. The 
Prussians serving under Macdonald deserted 
him and, before many weeks had passed, the Prus- 
sian government plucked up enough courage 
to approve this course officially, signed a treaty 
of alliance with Russia (Kalisch, February 27) 
and declared war. The King of Naples soon 
abandoned his trust as commander-in-chief to 
return to his capital, and Prince Eugene, who 
assumed command, then gradually withdrew the 

189 



I90 NAPOLEON 

small army he had collected from the Vistula 
to the Oder, and then from the Oder to the 
Elbe; his numbers were quite insufficient to 
meet the Russians and Prussians in the field. 

Meanwhile Napoleon in Paris was making 
gigantic efforts to retrieve his impaired fortunes. 
New levies were raised amounting for the whole 
year 1813 to over a million men. Women, 
children and old men did the work of the fields, 
while every able-bodied man and boy was seized 
by the conscription, passed through the barrack- 
yard, armed, uniformed, and marched on the 
road to Germany. 

By the month of April Napoleon once more 
had a large army across the Rhine rapidly ad- 
vancing to join that of Prince Eugene. The 
Emperor took command in person and pushed 
on towards Leipzig. He effected his junction 
with the prince and was preparing to march on 
Berlin when he was attacked in flank by the 
Russians and Prussians under Wittgenstein and 
Blucher at Lutzen (May 2). Here a great 
battle was fought and the French conscripts 
astonished their generals and brought victory 
back to the imperial standards. But Lutzen 
was a hard-fought field barely won, and Napo- 
leon's lack of cavalry prevented his impeding 
the retreat of the allies. 




Campaign of Germany, 1813 



GERMANY AND ITALY 191 

Three weeks later another battle was fought, 
with much the same results at Bautzen. In 
the pursuit that followed into Silesia Napoleon 
once more sadly missed an efficient force of 
cavalry and on the 4th of June he agreed to an 
armistice that gave him Saxony and the line 
of the Elbe. He hoped by this means to gain 
time to bring up his strength in men and horses, 
but as events turned out, the suspension of 
hostiHties proved more to the advantage of the 
allies. During this armistice came the news 
of Wellington's decisive victory at Vittoria 
which drove the French from Spain, and 
Austria notified France that she was prepared 
to offer her mediation with a view to peace. 

As soon as Metternich had realized the mag- 
nitude of the disaster that had overtaken the 
French army in Russia, he determined to pre- 
pare to take advantage of it, but advanced with 
prudence. The Austrian army was rapidly in- 
creased and placed on a war footing, and after 
many hesitations due to the timidity of the 
Emperor Francis, Austria finally put forward 
her conditions. These were broadly that the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw should be abolished ; 
that Prussia should regain her boundaries of 
1805 ; that the Confederation of the Rhine 
should be dissolved, and that Austria should 



192 NAPOLEON 

regain Trieste and Dalmatia. There followed 
interviews between Napoleon and Metternich, 
extensions of the armistice, a peace Congress 
at Prague, but the Emperor never meant to 
accept peace, he was only negotiating to gain 
time. The upshot was that Austria, on her 
mediation failing, joined the allied Powers. 

On the loth of August hostilities were 
resumed, and Napoleon now had to face an 
Austrian army of two hundred thousand men 
besides those of Russia, Prussia, and Sweden. 
For Sweden had now joined the allies ; Mar- 
shal Bernadotte had been elected Crown Prince 
three years before and now led her army, while 
another Frenchman, General Moreau, had left 
the United States and joined the staff of the 
Czar Alexander. Even Murat, sick of war and 
anxious for his throne, had been engaged in 
negotiations with Austria, while the French 
army was utterly dispirited and longed for peace. 
The marshals were weary and entreated the 
Emperor to accept reasonable conditions, the 
conscripts mutilated themselves by thousands 
so as to be sent home. Yet Napoleon's relent- 
less energy drove his army to victory once 
more. At Dresden, on the 27th of August, the 
Austrians under Schwarzenberg were heavily 
defeated, largely owing to the King of Naples' 



GERMANY AND ITALY 193 

brilliant leadership of the French right. Then 
followed a series of inconclusive manoeuvres 
and partial engagements in which the allies 
were constantly successful against the detached 
French corps. The weather was inclement, 
the country exhausted, and the French army 
was reduced to some two hundred thousand 
men, while that of the allies had gradually in- 
creased to more than double that figure. Ger- 
many was now partly in arms, and as success 
appeared more hopeful, defection spread from 
one State to another. North, south, and east 
of the Elbe between Dresden and Magdeburg 
three great allied armies nearly surrounded that 
of Napoleon, avoiding battle with him, but 
engaging his marshals when he was absent. 
Finally, on Bavaria joining the allies, Schwar- 
zenberg moved from Bohemia westwards and 
threatened to strike at the Mayence-Leipzig 
road in Napoleon's rear. The Emperor now 
divided his army ; one half marched northwards 
under his own orders for a stroke at Blucher 
or Bernadotte; the other under the King of 
Naples was left to contain Schwarzenberg. 
Napoleon failed in his attempt to bring the 
Prusso-Russians, or Swedes, to an engage- 
ment, and fell back towards Leipzig; at the 
same time the King of Naples retired towards 
13 



194 NAPOLEON 

the same point, pressed hard by Schwarzen berg's 
superior numbers. 

All the armies were now converging from 
south, east, and north on Leipzig, one hundred 
and fifty thousand French, three hundred thou- 
sand allies, and on the 17th and 19th of October 
a decisive battle was fought there. The French, 
placed in a semicircle, fought on the defensive, 
but were slowly and surely driven back. A 
dramatic incident marked the second day's 
fighting, when a corps of Saxon troops left 
their position in the French lines and went 
over to the enemy. On the night of the 19th 
Napoleon, though hard pressed and driven 
back, still held positions covering the town, but 
he was virtually defeated and had not enough 
ammunition in hand to continue the struggle. 
Orders for a retreat were therefore issued. 
But to leave Leipzig by the road to Mayence 
a bridge over the Saale had to be crossed. 
This was insufficient for the passage of the 
army, and Napoleon, bent as ever on the offen- 
sive, had neglected to make provision for a 
retreat. On the morning of the 20th the last 
French corps were caught in the trap, and the 
bridge was blown up when thirty thousand men 
or more were still on the further bank. Probably 
Napoleon's total losses at Leipzig did not fall 



GERMANY AND ITALY 195 

far short of sixty thousand men, and a few 
weeks later the army he led back across the 
Rhine only numbered about seventy thousand. 

An incident of this retreat must now be 
mentioned that will lead to a digression on the 
affairs of Italy hitherto somewhat neglected. 
A few days after leaving Leipzig Joachim 
Murat suddenly left headquarters and, travel- 
ling post-haste, returned to Naples, where he 
arrived in the first week of November. Murat, 
like nearly every one of Napoleon's generals, 
was heartily sick of war, and now considered 
the Emperor irretrievably defeated. He hoped 
for a prompt peace, but was anxious, whatever 
happened, to maintain his own position as 
King of Naples. If fighting were to continue 
this could only be done, so he thought, either 
by treating with the allies or in another way, 
one that opens up a large and interesting 
question of policy. 

By various consecutive steps, by the creation 
of the kingdom of Italy, by the conquest of 
the kingdom of Naples, by the absorption 
of the States of the Church, Napoleon had 
brought all the peninsula of Italy under his 
rule. For the first time since the days of 
Rome, Italians from north and from south 
fought under the same flag, obeyed similar 



196 NAPOLEON 

laws, were governed by the same system ; and 
this too was the work of a man of Italian 
race. The designation he had chosen for his 
Lombard provinces, the declarations he had 
made during the campaign of 1796, the title 
he had given his son, were all indications 
of a possible creation of an Italian nationality. 
Now that Germany and Spain were lost, now 
that victorious Austria was on the point of 
invading her lost provinces south of the Alps, 
the question arose: how were they to be 
defended? Prince Eugene, Viceroy of Italy, 
had been sent to assume command of such 
troops as could be collected. But his army 
was small, there was no public spirit behind 
him, and the King of Naples persistently 
declined to move his troops to assist the 
Prince. Murat wanted to do one of two 
things: either to obtain a guarantee of his 
throne from Austria and Great Britain, or to 
obtain from Napoleon a declaration creating 
Italy one, and giving him the command of 
her combined and now national resources. In 
the latter case he made sure that, joining his 
troops to those of the Viceroy and supported 
by the nationalist sentiment of the people, he 
could successfully resist any Austrian invasion. 
Appealing both to Metternich and to Napoleon, 



GERMANY AND ITALY 197 

he found the former willing, the latter unwill- 
ing to treat. The dream of Italian unity 
faded and Murat turned traitor to his old 
colours by signing a treaty of alliance with 
Austria on the nth of January 1814. At that 
date the Austrians had already occupied Vene- 
tia to the south of the Alps, while to the north 
they had crossed the Rhine and were marching 
on Paris. 







CHRONOLOGY 


2 May, 
21 " 


1813. 


Lutzen. 
Bautzen. 


4 Jnne, 

10 Aug., 

21 June, 

26 Aug., 

7-19 Oct. 


<{ 


I Armistice. 

Wellington successful at Vittoria. 

Dresden. 

Leipzig. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 11. 

For the negotiations between Napoleon and Metternich, 
see the latter's Memoirs. For the war in Germany gen- 
erally, see Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussen, BerKn, 1876; 
LuCKWALDT, Oesterreich unci die Au/dnge des Befreiungs- 
krieges, Berlin, 1894; Fain, Manuscrit de 18 13, Paris, 
1824. For the affairs of Italy, see Helfert, Murat, 
Vienna, 1878, and Weil, Le Prince Eughie, Paris, 1902. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 

Napoleon's last Defence — St. Dizier — Brienne — La Rothiere 
— Montmirail — Laon — Chatillon — Fall of Paris — Abdica- 
tion — The Final Scene at Fontainebleau. 

DRIVEN from Russia in 1812, from 
Germany in 181 3, Napoleon was now, 
in 18 14, preparing to defend France. 
Yet peace had always been within his reach, 
and even after so many disasters, when the 
allies were mustering half a million of men 
on the frontiers of exhausted France, she 
might still have retained the natural frontiers 
won by the Republic, — the Alps and the 
Rhine. During the last few months negotia- 
tions proceeded, at Frankfort, at Chalons ; but 
beneath the diplomatic superficialities and 
wranglings was the unmistakable fact that 
Napoleon was always thinking of victory 
rather than of peace; he aimed at regaining 
the whole of his position and would not 
accept a diminished portion ; he was the man 
of success and could not acknowledge defeat. 

198 



THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 199 

His strategy, usually so sound, was weakened 
by the extravagant possibilities of victory his 
ardent imagination evoked. He forgot that 
soldiers were not machines always equally 
responsive to their driver's impulsion, and be- 
lieved that by military means such as his 
genius could devise he could plant the French 
eao:les once more in Berlin and on the Vistula. 
To retain his hold on Germany he had left 
one hundred and fifty thousand men in her 
fortresses from Dresden to Hamburg and 
Dantzig ; these were now swallowed up and 
useless, while in France there were not enough 
soldiers to guard the Rhine. The remnants 
of the army that had retreated from Leipzig 
had been distributed along the frontier, but 
typhus broke out among the troops and caused 
immense losses. When the Austrians, Prus- 
sians, and Russians, some two hundred thou- 
sand strong, crossed the Rhine at the beginning 
of 18 14, they met with no resistance and 
slowly advanced into a country where there 
was apparently no army to oppose them. 

To understand the extraordinary military 
events that followed, a glance at the accom- 
panying map is necessary. Paris was the 
objective of the alHes, and there were three 
converging routes by which they might ad- 



200 NAPOLEON 

vance. The first of these ran south-east from 
the Rhine through Namur and Laon ; the 
second, starting from points on the Rhine 
between Mayence and Basle, followed roads 
converging about Vitry and Chalons, and 
thence took the valley of the Marne to the 
capital; the third was parallel to the second 
and to the south of it, following the valley 
of the Seine. As the campaign opened, the 
great force of the allies under the supreme 
command of Schwarzenberg, accompanied by 
the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the 
King of Prussia had reached the Marne 
and Seine unopposed; Blucher with seventy 
thousand Prussians and Russians was on the 
northern road, Schwarzenberg with one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand Austrians on the 
southern. 

Napoleon had now collected about fifty thou- 
sand men, mostly raw recruits, at Chalons, and 
marched rapidly up the Marne valley, striking 
Blucher's advance at St. Dizier on the 27th of 
January. Fierce fighting followed, and Blucher, 
unable to hold his ground, retreated, abandon- 
ing the line of the Marne and marching south 
towards Schwarzenberg. Napoleon followed 
hard, overtook and surprised the Prussians at 
Brienne on the 29th, and there once more drove 



THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 201 

them off the field. And here it may be as well 
to note the peculiar advantage Napoleon had 
in this campaign. He was fighting on his own 
ground. The name of Brienne has once before 
appeared in this history, for here it was that 
Napoleon had passed most of his schoolboy 
days ; how little could he foresee then that he 
would one day surprise and nearly capture a 
Prussian commander-in-chief in the old chateau 
where he had investigated the initial mysteries 
of mathematics and literature ! 

But the Austrians were now at hand. On 
the day following his defeat at Brienne, Blucher 
effected his junction with Schwarzenberg, and 
Napoleon determined to make an attempt to 
bar their advance. He selected a strong 
position at La Rothiere, and there fought a 
desperate defensive battle against immensely 
superior numbers on the ist of February. 
Making up for his lack of infantry and cavalry 
by employing and risking the loss of immense 
batteries, he made a gallant defence, and at 
nightfall was still maintaining the fight. But 
the French army had lost too severely and 
was too exhausted to renew the engagement, 
and in the night Napoleon retreated down the 
valley of the Seine, eventually taking position 
at Nogent. He was now extremely dejected, 



202 NAPOLEON 

and it may be that for a few days at this time 
his instructions to Caulaincourt for negotiating 
a peace were sincere. But the aspect of affairs 
soon changed. 

Their victory at La Rothiere made Blucher 
and Schwarzenberg lose sight of the extraordi- 
nary and indomitable resource of their enemy. 
The original scheme was resumed and Blucher 
returned to the valley of the Marne, leaving 
Schwarzenberg to follow that of the Seine. 
From Nogent Napoleon eagerly watched their 
movements. With a detached corps he demon- 
strated in Schwarzenberg's front and delayed 
his advance ; then, timing his march with mar- 
vellous precision, he suddenly struck north 
towards the valley of the Marne. Blucher was 
advancing westwards along the road that follows 
that valley, there being about three days' march 
between his front and rear divisions. On the 
loth of February Napoleon struck this long 
column at its centre, destroyed that, and turn- 
ins: rieht and left in the course of the next two 
days completely shattered the Prussian army, 
the principal engagements being fought at 
Champaubert, Montmirail, and Vauchamps. 
Blucher beat a disordered retreat, and Napoleon 
was so elated at his brilliant success that he 
confidently declared that one more such vie- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 203 

tory would carry the French arms to central 
Germany. 

But while this fighting was proceeding in 
the valley of the Marne, Schwarzenberg had 
pushed on up the valley of the Seine, and was 
now getting threateningly near Paris. The Em- 
peror could not pursue Blucher, but fell back 
nearer the capital to watch the Austrian move- 
ments, and decided to try against Schwarzen- 
berg the same strategy that had succeeded so 
well against Blucher. He rapidly transferred 
his army from the valley of the Marne to 
the valley of the Seine once more, struck 
the Austrian line of advance in flank, and 
severely handled their columns in a series of 
engagements of which those at Nangis and 
Montereau only need be mentioned (February 
17 to 22). On the 23d of February Napoleon 
had advanced as far as Troyes, and Schwarzen- 
berg was falling back in full retreat. 

These wonderfully brilliant results, this ap- 
pearance of success, proved elusive. The rein- 
forcements sent from Paris to the army barely 
sufficed to fill the gaps caused by casualties, 
disease, and the wholesale desertions of the 
conscripts. There was a dearth, too, of muskets, 
and the withdrawal of troops from the southern 
army under Soult had enabled Wellington to 



204 NAPOLEON 

get a foothold north of the Pyrenees. While 
Napoleon, though successful, saw his strength 
decrease, the defeated allies were being daily 
reinforced. A large number of fresh troops 
had now joined Blucher, while other corps had 
begun operations in the direction of Laon, and, 
after much hesitation and debate, the assembled 
monarchs, statesmen, and generals of the allies 
decided that the march on Paris must be re- 
sumed. Blucher once more advanced down 
the valley of the Marne, and this time reached 
Meaux before Napoleon could arrest his move- 
ment. No sooner, however, had Blucher real- 
ized that the Emperor was once more nearing 
his flank than he hastily crossed to the further 
bank of the Marne (March 3), and retreated 
towards the north. Napoleon pursued, and 
manoeuvred to surround the Prussians, but was 
unsuccessful, partly owing to the advance of 
fresh allied corps down the Namur-Laon-Paris 
road. On the 7th a severe action was fought 
at Craonne with little result. Blucher, however, 
retreated, and on the 9th at Laon once more 
offered battle, and this time with success. 
Napoleon was severely defeated and retreated 
to Rheims. Still hoping for success, however, 
and learning that Schwarzenberg was again 
on the march for Paris, he left Rheims and 



THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 205 

marched hurriedly southwards to attack the 
Austrians once more. On the 20th of March 
the French advance guard came into contact 
with an Austrian column at Arcis-sur-Aube. 
Soon the whole of Napoleon's little army was 
in action but the Emperor discovered, when it 
was too late to disengage himself, that it was 
not an isolated Austrian corps but the whole 
of Schwarzenberg's army that faced him. The 
odds were too great, and though Napoleon 
rode through the fiercest fire, apparently court- 
ing death, he could not avert a crushing defeat. 
Beaten by both Prussians and Austrians, his 
army shattered, all hope of success now seemed 
lost; but Napoleon played one last desperate 
card. Instead of retreating towards Paris, he 
issued orders for the army to march north-east, 
towards the Rhine. His object was to base 
himself on the frontier fortresses, to sweep 
aside the allied forces blockading them, and to 
operate against Schwarzenberg's and Blucher's 
lines of communications. It was a defensible 
move from a strictly military point of view, 
but was feeble politically. For there was now 
a Bourbon movement forming, and Napoleon 
had driven France to such a pass that peace 
would have appeared a cheap blessing to nearly 
all men at any cost. At Paris was a weak 



2o6 NAPOLEON 

government, the Empress, the King of Rome, 
Joseph Bonaparte, with few troops, little hope, 
and no abiUty. An occupation of the city 
would mean the proclamation of the Bourbons 
and the downfall of Napoleon. 

Detaching a large force of cavalry to mask his 
movements, Schwarzenberg risked his line of 
communications, pushed straight on for Paris, 
effected his junction with Blucher in the neigh- 
bourhood of Meaux, and on the 29th of March 
arrived under the walls of the capital. One 
day earlier Napoleon at Doulevent realized that 
his manoeuvre had not drawn his opponents from 
their objective, and that Paris was in imminent 
danger; he decided to start for the capital. 
He travelled post-haste, taking a southerly 
route by the Seine valley, leaving the army to 
follow him. On the evening of the 30th he 
reached Fontainebleau with a few attendants, 
where he received reports that heavy fighting 
had been going on before Paris, and that it 
had capitulated. He continued his journey, 
and, a few miles further on, met the troops 
that had just left the city by the terms of 
capitulation. General Belliard urged him to 
give up all thought of proceeding, and he 
turned back to Fontainebleau, where he took 
up his quarters in the Palace. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 207 

The game had been played out to the bitter 
end, and Napoleon had lost. He could still 
muster fifty thousand men at Fontainebleau, 
and for a day or two he threatened to continue 
the struggle, but France was fast turning from 
him. A Provisional Government, of which the 
chief member was Talleyrand, had proclaimed 
the restoration of the Bourbons, and even the 
marshals were anxious to put an end to the 
frightful eighteen months' drama that had cost 
a million lives and that had shaken their alle- 
giance to their old comrade and Emperor. The 
hard facts of the situation were too great for 
even Napoleon to conquer, and on the 4th of 
April he signed a formal abdication. A week 
later he concluded a personal treaty with the 
allies whereby he was granted the sovereignty 
of the little island of Elba off the coast of 
Tuscany, the title of Emperor, and an annual 
revenue of two million francs, payable by the 
French government. While these negotiations 
were proceeding the new King, Louis XVIII., 
had made his entry into Paris surrounded by a 
group of marshals all wearing the white cock- 
ade of the Bourbons. On the 20th of April 
Napoleon's travelling carriage was ready for 
his conveyance as soon as one last ceremony 
should have been duly accomplished. A few 



2o8 NAPOLEON 

hundred veterans, the remains of the Old Guard, 
were drawn up in the courtyard of the palace 
for the last parade, for the last farewell. Then, 
at last, emotion broke down the indomitable 
courage, the pitiless intellect of the great cap- 
tain. When in front of that splendid setting 
of presented bayonets and sombre faces, grim 
under the tall bearskins, he saw the tattered tri- 
colour, — the flag of Lodi, of Marengo, of AuS" 
terlitz, — lowered to him for the last time, he 
was suddenly overpowered, and seizing the glo- 
rious symbol he buried his head in its folds and 
sobbed. That dramatic scene portended much,, 
for it was not only the Emperor Napoleoo 
whom the Bourbons were displacing, but also 
Napoleon the child of the Revolution; their 
white standard had displaced not only the flag 
of the Empire but that of the Republic. 



27 Jan., 


1814. 


St. Dizier. 


29 " 


(C 


Brienne. 


I Feb., 


(I 


La Rothiere. 


10 " 


il 


Champaubert. 


13 " 


(( 


Montmirail. 


17 " 


iC 


Nangis. 


7 March, 


i( 


Craonne. 


9 " 


(( 


Laon. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF FRANCE 209 

13 March, 18 14. Wellington enters Bordeaux, 

20 " " Arcis-sur-Aube. 

30 " " Paris capitulates. 

4 April, " Abdication of Napoleon. 

11" " Treaty of Fontainebleau. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General, — See page 11. 

In the preceding chapter several matters are treated 
rhortly : the campaign of Prince Eugene in Italy, for 
which see authorities quoted in last chapter; the opera- 
tions of Wellington from Vittoria to Toulouse, for which 
eee Napier or forthcoming volumes of Oman ; the Bourbon 
intrigues for which see the Memoirs of de Vitrolles or 
Pasqlier, and the negotiations of the alHes and Napo- 
leon, for which see Fournier, Der Congress von Chatillon, 
Vienna, 1900, and among Memoirs^ Castlereagh's dis- 
patches. For the Campaign of France see Fain, Manu^ 
scrit de 1814, Paris, 1823; Houssaye, 1814, Paris, 1888 
(Weil covers the same ground in more detailed fashion). 
For Maria Louisa and Napoleon at Fontainebleau, see 
W^elschinger, Le rot de Rome^ Paris, 1897. 



14 



CHAPTER XVI 

ELBA 

Return of the Bourbons — Congress of Vienna — French Dis- 
satisfaction — Napoleon leaves Elba — His progress to Paris 
— Changed Situation — Attitude of the Powers — Champ de 
Mai. 

THE return of the Bourbons, which few 
men thought possible a month before 
it happened, changed the whole aspect 
of the events that had brought it about. It 
was now clearly perceived that the triumph 
of the allies meant more than the fall of 
Napoleon, and that the autocratic system 
challenged by the Revolution, modified by the 
Empire, was to be reasserted. The Powers 
were now intent on readjusting the territorial 
divisions of Europe on such a footing as the 
old order of things and their recent successes 
appeared to make suitable ; but it was soon 
found, not unnaturally, that it would be a 
difficult matter to settle satisfactorily the nu- 
merous points at issue. It was therefore de- 
cided to call a congress of the great Powers 
at which every outstanding European question 

210 



ELBA 211 

should be determined ; this congress eventually 
assembled at Vienna, its first meeting taking 
place on the 20th of September. 

Of the different questions discussed by the 
Powers two appeared likely to lead to diffi- 
culties. The first of these concerned the par- 
celling out of north-eastern Germany, especially 
Saxony and Poland. This question created 
such antagonism that Austria, opposing Russia 
and Prussia, finally entered into a secret treaty 
of alliance with France and Great Britain ; 
there seemed, in fact, a strong prospect of a 
new European war. The question of Naples 
also gave rise to much difficulty. Murat's 
course of action during the campaign of 1814 
on the Po had been nearly as unsatisfactory 
to the allies as to Napoleon, and now the two 
restored Bourbon kings, — of France and of 
Spain, — were making every effort to get their 
kinsman Ferdinand reinstated at Naples. 
Murat prepared for war, hoped to take advan- 
tage of the apparently approaching conflict 
between Austria and Russia, and towards the 
end of February 18 15 chose the bold course 
of directly challenging the recognition of 
France. 

Meanwhile what had become of Napoleon ? 
The island of Elba in which he was cooped up 



212 NAPOLEON 

was far too small to hold so great a man. 
This had been generally felt immediately after 
the signing of the treaty that sent him there, 
and proposals had been put forward by Bour- 
bon partisans for his removal to the Azores 
and even more distant points. It is not 
credible that Napoleon would have ever be- 
come reconciled to his diminutive domain ; it 
is not credible that even without provocation 
he would have abstained from once more tak- 
ing part in that great game of politics that 
every instinct prompted him to, yet he did 
receive direct provocations that partly excuse 
the course he eventually adopted. He had 
heavy expenses to meet in Elba, for no sooner 
there than he began to improve roads and 
ports, to develop mines, to infuse such anima- 
tion in the island as it had never known; 
he had a thousand veterans in his service 
whom he had been allowed to keep for his 
personal protection, and these had to be main- 
tained; yet he could get no payment of the 
revenue secured to him by the treaty of Fon- 
tainebleau. There was even a worse griev- 
ance than this: his wife and his son were 
denied him. 

Maria Louisa had left Paris with the King of 
Rome at the approach of the allies. She had 



ELBA 213 

retired to Blois and had thought of joining 
Napoleon at Fontainebleau. But she hesitated, 
and presently Metternich persuaded her into 
various steps that gradually drew her under 
her father's influence. Keeping her away from 
Fontainebleau, Metternich eventually per- 
suaded her to Vienna. He placed as special 
diplomatic representative near her a dashing, 
amiable, and skilful negotiator, General Count 
Neipperg, who was destined never to leave 
her and eventually to marry her. In the 
first few weeks after the abdication of the 
Emperor correspondence passed between him 
and the Empress, and she showed some sign 
of attempting to join him at Elba, as he de- 
sired. Later, as Metternich's hold tightened, 
the correspondence was intercepted and at last 
dropped. 

As Napoleon brooded over his disasters, his 
mistakes, and his wrongs, he was silently but 
intently watching the proceedings of the Con- 
gress of Vienna on the one hand, the state 
of public opinion in France on the other. In 
France the all-important factor was the army, 
as it had been for twenty years past. The 
peace had set free thousands of seasoned sol- 
diers who returned from every part of Europe 
to find their old flag hauled down, and a new 



214 NAPOLEON 

government in power little inclined to give 
them employment or help. It was inevitable 
that Louis XVIIL should reduce the strength 
of the army, it was equally inevitable that such 
a step should lead to discontent. 

Thousands of officers were placed on half 
pay (in 1816 they numbered over sixteen thou- 
sand), which meant a trifling allowance rising 
from forty-four francs a year for lieutenants. 
Among these old soldiers the feeling against 
the Bourbons was doubly bitter, and not a few 
openly declared their hope that one whom 
from his favourite flower they called le Pere la 
Violette would soon come to their rescue. 
There was another active section of the popula- 
tion, militant ex-Jacobins, politicians, republi- 
cans, also actively opposed to the Bourbons and 
pushing eagerly towards a change of govern- 
ment. Probably the great mass of the people 
was content to be at peace once more and was, 
if not loyal to the new monarch, at all events 
opposed to change ; yet it is the active section 
and not the great mass that generally effects a 
revolution. 

Towards the close of February, then, it was 
confidently expected in high political quarters 
that a war was about to break out in north- 
eastern Europe, and Napoleon judged that 



ELBA 215 

France was ripe to revolt against the Bour- 
bons; he determined to risk all and turn that 
revolt to his profit. On the 25th of February 
he embarked his handful of soldiers in several 
small vessels, set sail, happily escaped the 
observation of the British cruisers, and on 
the I St of March disembarked at Cannes. 
Turning away from the royalist towns of the 
coast of Provence, Napoleon at once marched 
north at the head of his little column, into the 
mountains, towards Savoy. On the 5th, near- 
ing Grenoble, the result of his adventure was 
settled. Troops had been sent to arrest him 
and were discovered in position barring the 
road. Napoleon took with him forty grena- 
diers, their muskets reversed, and advanced 
on foot. When near to the opposing line, he 
threw open his long grey coat, showing his 
well-known uniform and the red ribbon of 
the Legion of Honour. When the soldiers 
saw once more that little stout man with the 
square head and piercing eye, their companion, 
their leader, who had planted the glorious flag 
that was carried behind him in every capital 
of Europe, they could resist no longer. Some 
one in the ranks shouted Vive V Empereur, the 
line broke out into vehement cheers and 
the soldiers crowded about Napoleon tearing 



2i6 NAPOLEON 

the hated white cockades from their shakos. 
That scene was repeated with variations at 
every point at which the Emperor met his 
old soldiers between Grenoble and Paris. 
Colonel Labedoyere, his old aide-de-camp, 
ordered the drums of his regiment to be broken 
open and drew from that receptacle where they 
had been sacredly treasured the old flag and 
the tri-colour cockades. At Lyons a large 
army under Macdonald's orders melted away 
at the first distant glimpse of the magician 
attired in the grey coat and little cocked hat. 
Louis XVIII. in despair entrusted the Guard to 
Ney, and that marshal declared he would cage 
the usurper ; but long before Napoleon arrived 
the contagion had outstripped him, and Ney 
and the Guard were his long before they met 
him. The Emperor accomplished the last 
stages of his journey in a carriage, attended 
by nothing more than half a dozen Polish 
lancers. Louis XVIII. fled from Paris on 
the 2oth of March, and a few hours later 
Napoleon entered the capital unescorted and 
as secure as though he had never left it; his 
arrival at the palace of the Tuileries occasioned 
a remarkable scene. It will serve to explain 
the peculiar quality of that demonstration if 
the experience of one of the eye-witnesses be 



ELBA 217 

recalled. General Thiebault, who had fought 
through all the wars of the Republic and 
Empire, had never been a zealous Bonapartist, 
rather the reverse ; he had accepted the re- 
turned Bourbons, and carried out his duty 
in opposing Napoleon's return. Deserted by 
his troops he had quietly returned to his house 
in Paris with the firm intention of takino^ no 
further active share in the events of the day. 
But the arrival, the personality of Napoleon 
was in the air; Thiebault was restless and 
decided after dining that he would go out 
and indulge in a short walk. At first he 
resolutely turned his steps in the opposite 
direction to the Tuileries, but presently the 
irresistible magnet began to draw; soon he 
found himself one of a great throng of old 
soldiers and citizens hurrying to the palace 
gates. Presently a travelling carriage drove 
up in the midst of a hurricane of cheers, a 
wild dash was made for it, and from the midst 
of the turmoil Napoleon appeared, was hoisted 
in strong arms from one step to another up 
to his old apartments on the first floor of the 
Tuileries ; and Thiebault was one of the crowd 
and cheering as wildly as the others ! That 
night a volunteer guard of general officers did 
sentry duty at the Emperor's door, but within 



2i8 NAPOLEON 

a day or two everything had fallen back into 
the old imperial routine. 

Superficially all was the same; in reality 
Napoleon's position was vastly changed. Even 
about his person many familiar faces were 
missing. Berthier, who as chief-of-staff had 
never left his side since 1796, did not choose 
to join him now, and Soult was appointed to 
that arduous post. Prince Eugene who had 
taken up his residence in the dominions of his 
father-in-law, the King of Bavaria, showed no 
desire to return to Paris. Josephine the wife, 
the friend of early and of late days, whom he 
frequently visited since the divorce and still 
preferred to all others, had died at the Mal- 
maison shortly after the abdication, and the old 
home of consular days was deserted. Talley- 
rand was in Vienna upholding the Bourbon 
interests, and there helped to define the position 
of Napoleon in a proclamation that was less to 
the credit of the Powers than a confession of 
the genius of their opponent ; the assembled 
monarchs and diplomatists of Europe solemnly 
proclaimed that Napoleon was an outlaw, 
"outside the pale of social and civil relations 
and liable to public vengeance." It was, in 
plain words, an incitement to assassination, 
and showed that the struggle was to be of a 



ELBA 219 

new character, that negotiation was out of the 
question, and that war must be to the death. 
Napoleon on his side declared, with more or 
less sincerity, that he was anxious for peace, 
that he intended to abide by the treaties that 
had closed the war of 18 14, and that his return 
to the throne was merely an incident of in- 
ternal policy that concerned the French people 
and himself ; at the same time he lost not an 
hour in preparing for hostilities. 

But the greatest change in the position of 
Napoleon was that in his relation to French 
liberalism. Before his landing at Cannes a 
republican revolution was thought to be im- 
minent by many, and if he had profited by the 
agitation and converted it to his own uses, he 
was none the less bound to base his position 
on popular support and to reckon with the 
leaders of the liberal party. He was repeating 
Brumaire, but with a weaker case. How far 
the internal necessities of his position carried 
him may be judged from the fact that one of 
his earliest measures (March 24) was to remove 
the restrictions on the press ; this was followed 
by the selection of two pronounced liberals, 
Carnot and Constant, as ministers, and by the 
announcement that the constitution would be 
amended in a popular direction. On the 2 2d 



220 NAPOLEON 

of April the constitutional changes were an- 
nounced ; the most important was that the 
legislative body or lower House was to be 
elected by the direct vote of the people. 

In the meanwhile matters looked daily more 
like war, and the stability of the remarkable 
evolution of French political institutions marked 
by the return of Napoleon was felt to be really 
dependent on the event of the approaching 
military operations. 

If there was one sovereign whom Napoleon 
might hope to detach from the European 
alliance, it was his father-in-law the Emperor 
of Austria, but, as it happened, his were the 
first troops engaged. Murat had closed his 
wranglings with the Powers by a stroke of 
despair, and immediately after Napoleon's de- 
parture from Elba had ordered his army into 
northern Italy. He was opposed by Austria. 
After a short campaign he was completely 
defeated at Tolentino, his army disbanded, 
and the Austrians occupied Naples, proclaim- 
ing Ferdinand. Murat escaped to the south 
of France, where he arrived just as Napoleon 
was on the point of leaving Paris to assume 
command of the French army for the last time. 

On the ist of June there was held a great 
ceremony known, in defiance of all chronological 



ELBA 221 

considerations, as the Champ de Mai. Detach- 
ments from every corps of the army paraded 
and received new flags, and Napoleon solemnly 
pronounced an oath to maintain the new con- 
stitution. Attired in a theatrical and unbe- 
coming costume he delivered a speech in which 
he appealed strongly to national and liberal 
sentiment and declared that as Emperor, as 
Consul, and as soldier, his every act had been 
dictated by his devotion to France. But these 
Napoleonic apologetics were not of vital im- 
portance; an Anglo- Prussian army under Well- 
ington and Blucher was assembled close to 
Brussels, a large Austrian army under Schwar- 
zenberg was nearing the Rhine, all Russia and 
Germany were alive with columns marching 
towards the French frontier, — here was the 
all-important problem to be solved : Could Na- 
poleon reassert his military superiority ? Were 
the French soldiers and generals the equals of 
those of a few years before ? Were the soldiers 
and generals of the allies no better than their 
predecessors ? 



222 NAPOLEON 



CHRONOLOGY 



20 Sept., 


1814. 


3 Jan., 


1815. 


25 Feb., 


iC 


I March, 




20 " 


(( 


3 May, 


it 


I June, 


ti 



Congress of Vienna. 

Treaty of Alliance, Austria, France, and 

Great Britain. 
Napoleon leaves Elba. 
Disembarks at Cannes. 
Arrives at Paris. 
Murat defeated at Tolentino. 
Champ de Mai. 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 1 1. 

For the Congress of Vienna, see Pallain's Correspondance 
de Talleyrand, Paris, 1881 ; also Metternich's Memoirs, and 
D'Angeberg, Congres de Vienne, Paris, 1847. For Italian 
affairs, Helfert and Weil as already referred to. For the 
journey to Elba and subsequent events, see Truchsess von 
Waldburg, Bonaparte's Reise von Fontainebleau^ Berlin, 
1815 j Houssaye, 181S, Paris, 1898. 



CHAPTER XVII 

WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 

Plan of Campaign — Ligny — March on Brussels — Waterloo — 
Second Abdication — St. Helena — Death of Napoleon. 

IT is curious to find Napoleon confronted 
in his last campaign by precisely the 
same military problem as in his first, ap- 
plying the same solution, but meeting with a 
different result. In 1 796, as now, his opponents 
were superior in numbers, occupied an ex- 
tended line and belonged to two armies operat- 
ing from two different bases ; in 18 15, as before, 
he decided to strike in full force at the point 
of junction of his opponents and to throw them 
back in diverging directions on their respective 
bases. The French army numbering about one 
hundred and twenty thousand men was rapidly 
concentrated during the first week in June, and 
on the nth the Emperor left Paris to take 
command. On the 14th he was at Beaumont 
on the frontier, in the midst of his troops, and 
within a few days' march of Brussels. 

223 



224 NAPOLEON 

So rapid was the French advance that the 
Prussians and English got little warning of the 
approaching storm. Blucher, in command of 
the former, was operating on the line of the 
Sambre and Meuse through Liege and Namur, 
and his different corps were distributed in the 
neighbourhood of the last-named city and 
Charleroi. The British under the Duke of 
Wellington had their base at Antwerp and their 
line of communications ran from that city to 
Brussels, and thence some twenty-five miles 
south where the troops were quartered to the 
west of the Prussians in the neighbourhood of 
Quatre Bras, Genappe, Nivelles and further 
to the west. A road running east and west 
through Quatre Bras and Ligny served to 
connect the Prussian right with the British 
left. It was at this point that Napoleon 
aimed. 

On the 15th the armies were in contact, the 
French driving back such opposition as they 
met with and occupying Charleroi. Blucher 
succeeded, however, in concentrating the greater 
part of his troops in the course of the night, 
and determined to hold his ground at St. 
Amand and Ligny the next day. The British 
were more completely surprised than the Prus- 
sians, yet the small force occupying Quatre 




BOflMAY & CO.: N.y,, 



Position at nightfall, June 17, 181 5 



WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 22 



Bras was left there and received such supports 
as could be pushed forward. On the i6th Na- 
poleon advanced to the attack of the Prussians, 
detaching a corps under Ney to operate against 
the British. A fierce struggle took place for 
the possession of the villages of St. Amand and 
Ligny that were at last carried by the French ; 
Blucher, although he had lost heavily, retired 
slowly towards Gembloux in fairly good order. 
During the course of the same day Ney had 
been engaged with the British at Quatre Bras, 
but had not gained any ground. Yet on the 
whole the operations of the i6th had been very 
favourable to Napoleon: he had defeated the 
Prussians, inspirited his soldiers, and broken 
through the line of contact between the two 
allied armies. That night Napoleon formed a 
corps of some thirty thousand men which he 
placed under Grouchy, ordering him to follow 
Blucher's retreat. The Prussian general might 
withdraw along the line of the Sambre and 
Meuse ; this was the obvious course for him to 
follow and the one Napoleon hoped he would 
take. But he might play a bolder game and 
leaving his line of operations move north and 
attempt to join hands with Wellington in 
the neighbourhood of Brussels ; bolder yet, he 
might retreat ex-centrically and threaten the 
IS 



226 NAPOLEON 

French line of communications. During the 
early hours of the 17th Napoleon waited to get 
information ; but Blucher moved fast, Grouchy 
slowly ; the French light cavalry was at fault 
and could get no certain news. At last, hear- 
ing that the British still held Quatre Bras, 
"Napoleon put the whole army in movement 
towards that point. 

Wellington had no intention of holding 
Quatre Bras now that the Prussians had been 
forced to retreat, and he had only a rear guard 
in position when Napoleon arrived on the 
scene. The Duke got into communication 
with the Prussians, and believed that Bluchers 
intention was to move north and to effect a 
junction in front of Brussels if possible. He 
therefore decided to fall back some miles from 
Quatre Bras to a strong position at Mont 
Saint Jean, where he hoped for support. On 
the morning of the 17th he had not yet de- 
cided whether he would risk a battle at that 
point or not ; that, as he explained to one of 
Blucher's staff ofHcers, entirely depended on 
whether Blucher could undertake to support 
him with one of his corps. 

All through the afternoon of the 17th of 
June Napoleon pushed on with cavalry and 
horse artillery after the British rear guard from 



WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 227 

Quatre Bras northwards towards Brussels. In 
the evening he had reached the farm of La 
Belle Alliance and thence saw a mile in front 
the whole of Wellington's army evidently 
prepared to give battle. The Emperor now 
stopped, and as the evening passed into night 
long columns of soldiers came up and were 
bivouacked right and left of the road between 
Genappe and La Belle Alliance. On that 
same night Grouchy, marching with painful 
hesitation and slowness, had only reached Gem- 
bloux. He had now, however, ascertained that 
the Prussians had retreated towards Wavre, and 
proposed marching in that direction the fol- 
lowing morning. Blucher had, indeed, acted 
with the boldness, decision, and promptitude 
of a good soldier, and on the night of the 17th 
he had his whole army concentrated near Wavre. 
Thence he dispatched a staff ofHcer to inform 
Wellington that not one corps, but three, under| 
his personal command, would march to thei 
assistance of the British early in the morning.^' 
This message reached the Duke about two 
o'clock in the morning of the i8th, and he 
determined in consequence to hold his ground. 
On the 1 8th of June was fought the battle 
of Waterloo, so called from a village some way 
from the scene of action, the last and most 



228 NAPOLEON 

disastrous field of the greatest soldier known 
to history. Napoleon had some seventy thou- 
sand men actually present, WeUington rather 
less. Blucher, who came up late, engaged his 
troops gradually, and probably, at the last, had 
not more than thirty thousand in the fighting. 
Wellington's army was of mixed composition, 
and many of his corps, newly recruited in Hol- 
land, were of very poor quality ; he relied chiefly 
on his excellent British and German infantry. 
He had disposed his line according to his 
favourite method some fifty or one hundred 
yards back from the summit of a slope that the 
French would have to top in their advance. 
His infantry was in part further protected by 
a transversal sunken lane that acted as a sort of 
natural ditch. Wellington's position stretched 
out east and west of the Brussels road. On 
his right the manor house and enclosures of 
Hougoumont formed a strong natural bastion. 
In the centre the farm of la Haye Sainte 
formed another advanced position. The British 
left was more open, but a move in that direc- 
tion led over ground heavy and in part impass- 
able for horses, while it might also result in 
exposing the French to a flank attack from the 
Prussians. Napoleon, contrary to the opinion 
of all those of his generals who had fought the 



WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 229 

British in Spain, decided not to manoeuvre but 
to attack frontally. In this it is hard to be- 
lieve that he was right, for the French troops 
manoeuvred more rapidly than any in Europe, 
while the British were equally pre-eminent for 
their unflinching steadiness under attack and 
their deadly musketry. 

Heavy rain since the preceding day had 
turned the roads into quagmires; guns and 
transport wagons could be moved only with the 
greatest difficulty. Napoleon could not get his 
army ready for action, and the morning hours 
slowly passed. During that time Grouchy was 
marching steadily towards Wavre, while Blucher 
was struggling hard to get his columns on 
towards Mont Saint Jean but made hardly any 
progress in the muddy lanes of the valley of 
the Dyle. At last at 12 o'clock the Emperor 
opened the battle by sending the King of 
Westphalia to the attack of Hougoumont. 
This was only a demonstration, though fierce 
fighting took place at this point throughout 
the day. The real attack was to be made 
at the centre, where Napoleon intended to 
force the British line and establish himself at 
the cross-roads of Mont Saint Jean. Heavy 
columns of infantry, twenty thousand men in 
all, marched forward to the attack, faced the 



230 



NAPOLEON 



fire of the British artillery, breasted the slope, 
topped it, and then received the volleys of the 
British infantry. There was a fierce struggle ; 
Picton led forward his brigade with the bayonet 
and was killed ; the British cavalry charged and 
finally the French rolled back from the slope 
beaten, while the horsemen wrought havoc 
among them. 

The British cavalry went too far in pursuit, 
and was now assailed and routed by the French 
cavalry; the Emperor supported the, ftrst by 
fresh squadrons, and a great mass of horse soon 
climbed the slope from which the French in- 
fantry had been so disastrously driven. The 
British infantry was now thrown into squares, 
alternating on two lines in chess-board pattern, 
and the cavalry charged in among them, but 
with no success. A new and more determined 
effort was made. Ney led the attack. ' Every 
available horseman was thrown in. Long lines 
surged upwards, steel-breasted cuirassiers, tall 
horse grenadiers in bearskins, carabineers with 
gilded armour and enormous curved helmets, 
Polish lancers with fluttering pennons, dragoons, 
hussars. The British gunners from the crest 
line ploughed great holes in their ranks, then 
at the last moment ran back to the infantry 
squares for protection. But though the French 



WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 



23 



cavalry easily overran the guns and swallowed 
the squares of red-coated soldiers in their midst, 
they could make little impression on the coolly 
levelled bayonets, while a destructive fire mowed 
them down in hundreds. Three times was the 
charge renewed, but after the fourth failure it 
was no longer possible to hope that the Em- 
peror's cavalry would turn the fortunes of the 
day. A great part of it lay dead and mangled 
along the front of the British position. 

The battle had not been long in progress 
when Napoleon observed a dark column of 
soldiers winding along a road some miles away 
to the east. Before long it became clear that 
some Prussian movement was to be expected 
from that direction, and the French right was 
thrown back and reinforced. The Prussians 
attacked as soon as they could be brought into 
action fighting in a Hne that may be roughly 
described as at right angles with the British 
left and parallel with the Brussels-Quatre Bras 
road. This they were beginning to threaten 
to the rear of the French right while the great 
cavalry charges against Wellington's centre 
were progressing. Napoleon, however, was still 
hopeful of forcing the British line before the 
Prussian attack had developed sufficient force. 
He also hoped that Grouchy might come up 



232 



NAPOLEON 



on his right, and sent orders for that marshal 
to march in the direction of the main army. 
But Grouchy, obeying his original orders in a 
strict sense, was following the Prussian rear 
guard which kept him engaged during the 
whole day in the neighbourhood of Wavre. 

The Emperor now ordered Ney to resume the 
attack and to carry la Haye Sainte at any cost. 
Ney led his men in person, and after a fierce 
struggle drove the defenders from the farm. 
He had now obtained a foothold in the British 
centre, and getting some guns in position at 
short range opened a deadly fire. Several of 
the English brigades were now nearly shattered, 
some German and Dutch troops gave way, and 
a stream of fugitives set in from the field towards 
Brussels. But Wellington and his splendid 
infantry remained firm, gaps were filled as best 
they could be, and Ney could get no response 
to his pressing call for some fresh troops to 
drive home the attack. Napoleon had in truth 
at that moment no troops to spare ; all the re- 
serves had been used save a few regiments of the 
infantry of the Guard, and the Prussians had 
just carried the village of Planchenoit within 
striking distance of his line of retreat. The 
position was fast getting desperate for the Em- 
peror. Two regiments of the Guard, however, 



WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 233 

drove the Prussians out of Planchenoit, and 
taking advantage of this respite Napoleon 
aimed one last blovv; at Wellington's centre. 
Some four thousand infantry of the Guard were 
massed into column and Ney advanced at their 
head over the ground where he had led the 
cavalry earlier in the day. The exhausted com- 
batants to the right and left, from la Haye Sainte 
to Hougoumont, paused and watched the slow 
advance of that magnificent infantry, the last 
remnant of veterans of the great armies of the 
Republic and the Empire. From along the crest 
the English gunners poured down grape and 
cannister. The commander of the infantry of 
the Guard, Count Friant, fell dead ; Ney's horse 
was shot down, but the marshal jumped to his 
feet, drew his sword, and marched on through 
the smoke dauntlessly. Once more the crest 
was won, once more the British infantry behind 
it poured in their deadly musketry. The Old 
Guard deployed its melting lines as best it 
could, and for five or ten minutes struggled to 
hold its ground. But the fire was too deadly, 
the French began to recede, and soon their 
broken lines were flowing backwards. At this 
moment the Duke of Wellington rode forward 
to the crest, his figure could be seen for some 
way along the British line ; he raised his hat 



234 NAPOLEON 

high in the air and waved it towards the enemy. 
At this victorious signal the British regiments 
advanced along the whole line, fifes and drums, 
bugles and bagpipes urging the men forward. 
The French army was beaten. The sight of 
the Old Guard rolling back in confusion, of 
fresh columns of Prussians closing in on the 
right, told the defeated French that all was 
lost. On the high road by la Belle Alliance 
a few squares of grenadiers still held their 
ground and gave Napoleon shelter; but all 
attempts to stay the panic that had now seized 
the whole army was hopeless. The pursuit was 
taken up by the Prussians, and it was not till 
three days later and many miles within the 
French frontiers that the army could be restored 
to some semblance of order. 

Napoleon had appealed to the supreme po- 
litical test and failed, and he now apparently 
entertained no hope of being able to recover 
his position. He arrived in the capital on 
the night of the 20th, and on the following 
day the Chamber, on the motion of Lafayette, 
declared itself in permanent session and di- 
rected the ministers to report to it. In effect 
this was a withdrawal of authority from the 
hands of Napoleon, and he accepted it in that 
sense. On the following day he abdicated for 



WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA 



235 



the second time in favour of his son. A week 
later the allies were nearing Paris, and the 
provisional government, led by Fouche, was 
intriguing with the Bourbons. There was 
nothing Napoleon could now do but to try to 
leave France. He proceeded to Rochefort, 
whence he expected to be able to find ship for 
the United States. But a British cruiser block- 
aded the port, and Napoleon finding no other 
course possible finally went on board H. M. S. 
Bellerophon, Captain Maitland, and threw him- 
self on the generosity of Great Britain. 

The arrival of the Bellerophon and her illus- 
trious passenger at Portsmouth created great 
excitement in England. It is easy to see at 
this distance of time that Napoleon's career was 
run, and that a magnanimous treatment would 
not have been dangerous. But the feeling of 
those days was violent. Never had Great 
Britain been so threatened and alarmed as she 
had been when the army of Austerlitz was en- 
camped along the shores of the Channel. The 
generation that had struggled with and defeated 
Napoleon could not forgive him, and General 
Bonaparte, as the British Government child- 
ishly insisted on addressing him, was sent to 
the island of St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, 
as a State prisoner. 



236 NAPOLEON 

Of his six years' residence in that island 
there is but little that can be said here with 
advantage. Controversy has raged about the 
trivial matters over which the illustrious pris- 
oner and his gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe, disputed. 
Englishmen have written to prove that Napo- 
leon was insulted and shabbily treated, French- 
men to prove that he spent his whole time lying 
and intriguing against Sir Hudson Lowe. It 
is altogether fortunate that these matters are of 
minor importance, and that they need not be 
discussed in a work of these dimensions. It is 
a self-evident proposition that under the most 
favourable circumstances the coupling of Napo- 
leon with a British military officer not remark- 
able for tact or urbanity on a barren rock in 
mid Atlantic could hardly lead to agreeable 
results. For those who have noted the pecul- 
iarities of Napoleon's character it will appear 
natural that his constant occupation at St. 
Helena was to dictate to some of his compan- 
ions in exile statements of a biassed and mis- 
leading character as to his history. He was 
busy elaborating the Napoleonic legend, creat- 
ing an artificial atmosphere of fact from which 
he hoped would emerge in some future time an 
empire for his son. Towards the little King 
of Rome his thoughts frequently turned, and 



WATERLOO AND ST, HELENA 237 

when in 1820 it became clear that an illness 
he had felt before at intervals was now becom- 
ing dangerously acute, he dictated long in- 
structions for the future guidance of his son. 
The last sentence of his will was of an extraor- 
dinary character. Was it hallucination, or was 
it astute calculation, that made him write: 
" My wish is to be buried on the banks of the 
Seine in the midst of the French people whom 
I so dearly loved " ? 

He died on the 5th of May 182 1, of cancer 
in the stomach, and was buried under a weep- 
ing willow near Longwood, where he had spent 
six weary years of exile. British soldiers ac- 
companied him to his rest with reversed arms, 
and fired a parting salute over his grave. 
Twenty years later, as if the violent contrasts 
of his life had not yet been exhausted, his 
body was ceremoniously transferred to Paris 
and buried in the Invalides with every circum- 
stance of military pomp and national mourning 
and under the auspices of a Bourbon King. 

CHRONOLOGY 

16 June, 1815. Ligny. 

18 " " Waterloo. 

22 " " Napoleon abdicates. 

5 May, 1 82 1. Death of Napoleon. 



238 NAPOLEON 



NOTE 

Bibliographical : General. — See page 1 1. 

For the Waterloo campaign see Houssaye, 1815^ Paris, 
1898; Ropes, Campaign of Waterloo ^ London, 18933 
SiBORNE, War in France, London, 1848. For St. Helena, 
RosEBERY, The Last Phase, London, 1901; Las Cases 
Memorial, Paris, 1823; O'Meara, Napoleon in Exile, 
London, 1822 ; Seaton, Napoleon^ s Captivity, London, 
1903; Jackson, Memoirs, London, 1903; (Seaton or 
Jackson should be read to check the attacks made on 
Lowe) . 



APPENDIX A 
BONAPARTE FAMILY 

— Joseph, King of Spain, d. 1844, — (no male descendants). 

— Napoleon, d. 1821. 



Duke of Reichstadt, d. 1832. 



Maria Louisa 

— Lucien, d. 1840, (barred from imperial succession). 
Louis, King of Holland, d. 1846. 



Hortense Beau- 
harnais 



— Napoleon Charles, d. 1807. 

— Napoleon Louis, d. 1831. 

— Louis Napoleon, Emperor, d. 1873. 

I • Napoleon Louis, d. 1879. 

Eugenie Montijo 



— Jerome, K. of Westphalia, d. i860. 
I Napoleon Joseph, d. 1891. 

Catherine of | 1— Victor Napoleon 

Wurtemberg Clotilde of Savoy |— Louis Napoleon 

— Elisa. 

1 
Prince Baciocchi 

Pauline 
I 
Prince Borghese 

Caroline 

I — Murat family. 

Joachim Murat, King of Naples, d. 181 5. 



INDEX 

OF NAMES OF PLACES AND PERSONS 



The heavy type indicates books referred to in the notes. 



Aboukir, 51, 52, 56. 

ABRANTES, see Junot. 

Acre, 55. 

ADAMS, Yi.^Bist. Essays, 117. 

Adda, 32. 

Adige, 35, 36, 38, 39. 

Adriatic, 43. 

Afghanistan, 49. 

Africa, South, 49. 

Ajaccio, 2, 14. 

Alembert, d', 10. 

Alessandria, 28, 30, 83, 85. 

Alexander, Czar, 124, 125, 140, 

146, 147, 158, 172, 174-181, 200. 
Alexandria, 51, 56. 
Alle, 139. 
Alps, 83, 198. 
Alvintzy, 37-39- 
America, 48; see also United 

States. 
Amiens, iit. 
ANGEBERG, D', Congres de 

Vienne, 222, 
Anna, Grand Duchess, 172-174. 
Antwerp, 7, 114, 224. 
Arcis-sur-Aube, 205. 
Areola, 38, 39. 
Asia Minor, 54. 
Aspern, 164-167. 
Atlantic, 49. 
Auerstadt, 134. 
Augereau, 27, 32, 45, 99, 137. 

16 241 



Austerlitz, 125. 

Austria, 60, 158, 196, 197^ 

Azores, 212. 

Bacciochi, 105; see also Bona- 
parte, Elisa. 
Baden, 108, 120. 
Baltic, 134, 149, 176. 
Bamberg, 133. 

BARING, Staff Coll. Essays, 26. 
Barras, 17, 18, 20, 66,69. 
Basle, 80, 120, 200. 
Bassano, 36. 

BAUSSET, Mems., 12, 188. 
Bautzen, 191. 

Bavaria, 123, 143, 144, 193. 
Baylen, 153. 
Bayonne, 152. 
Beauharnais, family, 64. 

" , Eugene, 19, 65, 105, 

106, no, 178, 189, 
190, 196, 218. 

" , Hortense, 19, 65, 

104, 105. 

" , Josephine, see Bona- 

parte. 

" , Vicomte de, 19, 20. 

Bcaulieu, 28-31, 34. 
Beaumont, 223. 
Belle Alliance, 227, 234. 
Belliard, 206. 
BELLIARD, Me7ns., 188. 



242 



INDEX 



Beluchistan, 49. 
Bennigsen, 136-139. 
Berezina, 184-186. 
Berlin, 131, 133, 135, 147. 
Berlin decree, 148, 149. 
Bernadotte, 45, 68, ']2), 126, 127, 

134, 136, 168, 192, 193. 
Berthier, 56, 75, 81, 82, 218. 
Bessieres, 178. 
Black Forest, 120. 
Blucher, 134, 190, 193, 200-206, 

221, 224-229. 
Bohemia, 123, 193. 
Bologna, 43. 
Bonaparte, Caroline, 104, 105. 

" , Charles, 2, 105. 

" , Elisa, 105. 

" , Jerome, 105, 178, 229. 

" , Joseph, 64, 66, 104, 
150, 171, 206. 

*' , Josephine, 19, 20, 43, 
64, 65, 96, 104, 105, 
162, 172, 218. 

" , Louis, 105. 

" , Lucien, 64, 66, 69, 74, 
77, 78, 104. 

*' , Napoleon, /«jj-m. 

" , Pauline, 105. 
BONAPARTE, JOSEPH, 

Correspondence, 118. 
Borghese, 105. 
Borodino, 180, 182. 
Bosphorus, 2. 
Boulogne, 121. 
Bourbons, 9. 

BOURGOGNE, Me?tis., 188. 
Bourrienne, 14, 75. 
BOURRIENNE, Mems., 12, 

13, 26, 58, 102, 118. 
BOUVIER, Bonaparte, 40. 
Brazil, 148. 
Brenta, 37. 
Brest, 114-116. 



Brienne, 3, 200, 201. 

Brittany, 106. 

BROWNING, England and 
Napoleon, 118. 

Brueys, 50-52. 

Brunswick, Duke of, 132-134. 

Brussels, 223-228 

BURGOYNE, Naval and mili- 
tary operations^ 58. 

Cadiz, 1 1 5-1 17. 

Cadoudal, 106-108. 

Cairo, 51, 56. 

Calder, 116. 

Caldiero, 38, 46. 

Cambaceres, 66, 92. 

Campo Formio, 43, 47, 59, 87. 

Canadian lakes, 113. 

Cannes, 215. 

Carnot, 219. 

Cartagena, 115. 

Cassel, 121, 132. 

Castiglione, 35. 

CASTLEREAGH, Dispatches, 
209. 

Caulaincourt, 202. 

CAVAIGNAC, Mems., 12. 

Ceva, 28. 

Chalons, 198, 200. 

Champaubert, 202. 

Channel, the, 48, 114, 116, 130, 
148. 

Chantereine, rue, 64. 

Charleroi, 224. 

Charles IV. of Spain, 150-152. 

Charles, Archduke, 41, 123, 162- 
170. 

Chateaubriand, 8, 109. 

Cherasco, 29, 30. 

CHUQUET, Jeunesse de Napo- 
leon, 12. 

Cintra, 153. 

Cisalpine republic, 43, no. 



INDEX 



243 



CLAIR, Hoferetle Tyrol, 169. 

Coblentz, 121. 

Coburg, 133. 

Colli, 28. 

Constant, 219. 

Constantinople, 2, 53. 

Copenhagen, 147, 148. 

Corfu, 52, 146, 150. 

Cornwallis, 115, 116. 

Corsica, i, 15. 

Corunna, 154, i5S- 

COTTIN, Toulon et les Anglais^ 

26. 
Craonne, 204. 
Crete, 51. 

CROMER, j^^ Baring. 
CUGNAC, DE, Cafnpagne, 87. 
Cuvier, 96. 

Dalmatia, 192. 

Danube, 121, 123, 163, 167. 

Danzig, 136, 199. 

David, 96. 

Davidowich, 36-38. 

Davoust, 125-128, 134, 168, 178. 

DAYOT, N'apoleon, 12. 

DEBIDOUR, VEglise et VEtat, 

102. 
Decres, 27. 
Dego, 28. 
DELAROCHE, Numismatique, 

12. 
Delavigne, 8. 
Denon, 112. 
Desaix, 85, 86. 
DESBRIERE, Projets de de- 

barqiiement, 58, 1 18. 
Diderot, 10. 
Dieppe, 114, 
Dijon, 81. 
Directoire, 17, 45-47, 50, 59-66, 

69, 72, 74, 92, 98. 
Dnieper, 183. 



Doulevent, 206. 
Dresden, 178, 192, 193, 199. 
Ducos, Roger, 66, 69, 78, 89. 
Dupont, 153. 

DURAND, Mems.^ 12. ■' 
Duroc, 104. 

DU TEIL, Napoleon, 26/ 
Dyle, 229. 

Ebro, 153. 
Eckmiihl, 163. 
Eguillette, Fort of, 15. * 

Egypt, 50-55, 79. Ill- 
Elba, 207, 211, 213. 
Elbe, 131, 132, 190, 191, 193. 
Enghien, Due d', 108, 109. 
England, 48, 49, 147, 158, 196, 211. 
Erfurt, 131, 132, 158, 159. 
Essling, 164-167, 170. 
Eylau, 136-138. 

FABRY, Annie d'ltalie, 40. 

FAIN, Manuscrit de 181^, 197; 
Manuscrit de 18 14, 209. 

Ferdinand of Naples, 211. 

Ferdinand of Spain, 151, 152. 

Ferrol, 115, 116. 

Finland, 146. 

FISHER, Napoleonic Statesman- 
ship, Ger?nany, 102, 156. 

Fontainebleau, 206-208, 213. 

F O U C A R T, Campagne de 
Pritsse, 141. 

Fouche, 92, 160, 161, 235. 

FOURNIER, Congress von Cha- 
tillon, 209; Napoleon, ii, 102, 
169. 

Francis, Emperor, 124, 144, 178, 
191, 200, 220. 

Frankfort, 198. 

Frederick the Great, 21. 

Frederick William, 130, 146, 200. 

Frejus, 56. 



244 



INDEX 



Friant, 233. 
Friedland, 139. 

GAFFAREL, Bonaparte, 58. 

Galicia, 174. 

Garda, 35. 

Gaudin, 92. 

GAUDIN, Mems.y 102. 

Gembloux, 225, 227. 

Genappe, 224, 227. 

Geneva, 82. 

Genoa, 28, 43, 79, 81, 83, no. 

Genoese, 12. 

GEORGE, NapoleofCs invasion of 

Russia, 188. 
German Empire, see Holy Roman. 
Gibraltar, 2, 115, 116. 
Godoy, 150-152. 
Gohier, 69. 

Good Hope, Cape of, 49, 
Great Britain, see England. 
Grenoble, 215. 
Grouchy, 225-232. 
GUILLON, Complots militaires, 

118. 
Gumbinnen, 186. 

Hamburg, 199. 
Hanover, 121, 130. 
HAUSSONVILLE, D', 

L' Eglise romaine, 102. 
Haye Sainte, 228, 232, 233. 
Heilsberg, 138. 
HELFERT, Kbnigin Karolina, 

141; Marie Louise, iZZ\ Murat, 

197, 222. 
Helvetius, 10. 
Hoche, 63. 
Hof, 133. 
Hohenlinden, 87. 
Hohenlohe, 134. 
Holland, 60. 

Holy Roman Empire, 144. 
Hougoumont, 229, 233. 



HOUSSAYE, 1814, 209; 181S, 

222, 238. 
HtJFFER, Quellenfur Geschicte, 

87. 
Illyria, 169. 

INCONNUE, see Cavaignac. 
India, 49, 50, 53, 150. 
Indian Ocean, 49. 
Indus, 49. 
Invalides, 237. 
Isar, 163. 
Ischia, 166. 
Italy, 20, 149, 195, 196. 

JACKSON, B., Mems., 12, 238. 

Jackson, T. J., zi- 

Jacobins, 16, 60, 68, 69, ^t^, 74, 77. 

Jaffa, 54, 55- 

Jena, 133, 134, 151. 

John, Archduke, 87. 

JOMINI, Art of War, 26. 

Joseph, see Bonaparte. 

Joubert, 61-63. 

Jourdan, 45, ^i, y:^. 

Julian Alps, 41. 

JUNG, Bonaparte, 12. 

Junot, 104, 148-153, 178. 

JUNOT, Mems., 12, 26, 118. 

JURIEN DE LA GRA- 

VIERE, Guerres maritimes, 

118. 
Kalisch, 189. 
Kalouga, 182. 
KIRCHEISEN, Bibliographie, 

12. 
Konigsberg, 136, 139, 187. 
Kray, 80, 81. 
Kutusoff, 125-128, 180-185. 

La Barre, de, 10. 
Labedoyere, 216. 
Lafayette, 234. 

LA JONQUIERE, Expedition 
d'Egypte, 58. 



INDEX 



245 



Lamartine, 8. 

LANFREY, Napoleon, 11. 

Lannes, 32, 99, 134, 139, 164, 165. 

Laon, 204. 

Laplace, 96. 

La Rothiere, 201, 202. 

LARREY, Mme. Mh-e, 13. 

LAS CASES, Memorial, 238. 

Lebrun, 92. 

Leclerc, 78, 105. 

Legnago, 34, 36. 

Leipzig, 131, 190, 193-195. 

LE NORMAND, Mems.,\2,\\^ 

Leoben, 42. 

LETTOW-VORBECK, Der 

Kriegvon ^06, 141. 
Liege, 224. 
Ligny, 224, 225. 
Ligurian republic, 43, 
Lisbon, 148-153. 
Lobau, 165-167. 
Lodi, 31, 32. 

Lombardy, 30, 43, 83, 86, 196. 
Lonato, 35. 
Longwood, 237. 
Louis XVI., 14. 
Louis XVIIL, loi, 207, 214. 
Louisa of Prussia, 132, 143. 
Louisiana, 112, 113. 
Lowe, Pludson, 236. 
Lubeck, 134. 
LUCKWALDT, Oesterreich 

und Befreiuiigskriege, 197. 
Lune villa, 87, in. 
Lutzen, 190. 

Macdonald, 168, 178, 189, 216. 

Mack, 120, 121. 

Madrid, 151-154, 171. 

Magdeburg, 193. 

MAHAN, Influence of Sea Poxuer, 

58,118,155. 
Maitland, 235. 



Malmaison, 218. 

Malta, 51, 52, 55, 79, III, 112. 

Mameluks, 53. 

Mantua, 31-36, 39. 

MARBOT, Metns., 12, 169, 18S. 

Marchfeld, 167. 

Marengo, 83-86. 

MARGUERON, Campagne de 

Russie, 188. 
Maria Louisa, 163, 164, 173, 176, 

178, 206, 212, 213. 
Marne, 200-204. 
Marseilles, 80. 
Massena, 10, 27, 62, 63, 80, 83, 

123, 164, 168, 175. 
yiK^^O^, Josephine, 26; Napo- 

leo7i, 12. 
Mayence, 120, 121, 131, 132, 193, 

194, 200. 
Meaux, 204, 206. 
Mediterranean, 2, 3, 50, in, 116, 

150. 
Melas, 80-86. 
MENEVAL, Metns., 12. 
Messina, 51, 149. 
Metternich, 6, 159, 172, 173, 191, 

192, 196, 197, 213. 
METTERNICH, Metns., 12, 

222. 
Meuse, 224, 225. 
Mexico, Gulf of, 113. 
Milan, 30, 31, ^^, 34, 42, 83, no. 
Mincio, 34. 
Mississippi, 113. 
Modena, 43. 
Mollendorf, 124. 
MOLLIEN, Metns., 102. 
Mondovi, 28. 
M ON NET, Hist, de radminis- 

tration^ 102. 
Mont Cenis, 83. 
Montebello, 42. 
Montenotte, 28. 



246 



INDEX 



Montereau, 203. 

Montesquieu, 10. 

Montmirail, 202. 

Mont St. Jean, 226, 229. 

Moore, Sir J., 154, 160, 161. 

Moravia, 124, 125. 

Moreau, 63, 80, 83, 87, 107, 108, 

192. 
Mortier, 139. 
Moscow, 179-181. 
Moskva, 180. 
Moulins, 69. 
Mount Tabor, 56. 
Munich, 120. 
Murat, 10, 19, 45, 56, 76, 78, 83, 

120, 124, 134, 137, 139, 151,152, 

161, 166, 178, 181, 186, 189, 192- 

197, 211, 220. 

Namur, 204, 224. 

Nangis, 203. 

NAPIER, Peninsular war, 156, 

209. 
Naples, 59, 60, 112, 150, 195-197, 

211, 220. 
NAPOLEON, Corresp., 12. 
Napoleon III., 105. 
NASICA, Mems., 13. 
Naumburg, 133, 134. 
Neipperg, 213. 
Nelson, 50, 51, 11 5-1 17. 
NERVO, Finances frangaises, 

102. 
Ney, 10, 45, 139, 178, 183, 187, 216, 

225, 230, 232, 233. 
Nice, 20, 28, 81. 
Niemen, 140, 178. 
Nivelles, 224. 
Nogent, 201, 202. 
North Sea, 149. 
Novi, 62. 

Oder, 190. 

OMAN, Peninsular war, 156, 209. 



O'MEARA, Napoleon in exile, 

238. 
ON C KEN, Oesterreich und 

Preussen, 197. 
Oporto, 166. 
Oudinot, 126, 128, 139, 178, 184, 

185. 

Padua, 39. 

Palestine, 56. 

PALLAIN, Corresp. de Talley- 
rand, 222. 

Paoli, 2. 

Papacy, 59, 149. 

Paris, 3, 4, 14, 17, 45, 48, 179, 203, 
204, 205, 237. 

PASQUIER, Mems., 12, 102, 
209. 

Paul, Czar, 79. 

PEROUSE, Napoleon, 102. 

Persia, 49, 150. 

Peschiera, 34. 

PETRE, Napoleon's campaign in 
Poland, 141. 

Piacenza, 31, 83. 

Piave, 37. 

Pichegru, 106, 107. 

Picton, 230. 

Piedmont, 83. 

Pius VII., no, 166, 172. 

Planchenoit, 232, 233. 

Po, 30, 31, 35, 83. 

Poland, 135, 158, 174,211. 

Poniatowski, 174, 178. 

Portugal, 147, 148, 150. 

Prague, 192. 

Pratzen, 126-128. 

Pressburg, 130, 143, 149. 

Provence, 215. 

" , Comte de, see Louis 
XVIII. 

Provera, 39. 

Prussia, 124, 125, 146, 147, 158. 



INDEX 



247 



Pultusk, 136. 
Pyrenees, 153, 204. 
Pyramids, 53. 

Quadrilateral, 35, 83. 
Quatre Bras, 224-227. 
Quosdanowich, 35. 

Red Sea, 50. 

REMUSAT, Mems., 12. 

Rheims, 204. 

Rhine, 43, 60, 80, 198, 200, 205, 

221. 
Rivoli, 38, 39. 
Robespierre, 16, 17. 
Robespierre yif2<!;z(?, 16. 
Rochefcrt, 115, 116, 235. 
ROEDERER, CEuvres, 12, 118. 
Rome, 60. 

" , King of, 176, 206, 212, 236, 

237. 
Ronco, 38. 

ROPES, Waterloo, 238. 
ROSE, Napoleon, 11, 156. 
ROSEBERY, The Last Phase, 

238. 
Rousseau, 10. 
Roveredo, 37, 39. 
Rudolstadt, 132. 
Russia, 49, 60. 

Saale, 194. 
Saalfeld, 133. 
St. Amand, 224, 225. 
St. Bernard, 82, 83. 
St. Cloud, 68-71. 
St. Cyr, 178. 
St. Dizier, 200. 
St. Gotthard, 83. 
St. Helena, 235-237. 
Ste. Nicaise, rue, 103. 
Sambre, 224, 225. 
Santon, 125. 



Sardinia, 14, 28, 30. 
SASKI, Campagne de *og, 169. 
Sastchan, 128. 
Savary, 108. 
SAVARY, Mems., 58. 
Saxony, 174, 178, 191, 21 r. 
Schonbrunn, 169-171. 
SCHONHALS, Der Krieg %, 

129. 
Schwarzenberg, 177, 189, 192-194, 

200-206, 221. 
SEATON, Napoleon's Captivity, 

238. 
Sebastian!, 71. 
Segur, 6. 

SEGUR, Mems., 12, 188. 
Seine, 200-203, 206. 
Serurier, 27, 86. 
Shenandoah, 37. 

SI BORNE, War in France, 238. 
Sieyes, 61, 62, 66, 67, 69, 73, 88- 

91- 
Silesia, 191. 

SLOANE, Napoleon, 12. 
Smith, Sidney, 55. 
Smolensk, 180, 182-184. 
Soult, 126, 127, 134, 155, 166,203, 

218. 
Souvaroff, 60, 62. 
Spain, 150, 151, 154, 171. 
Staps, 171, 172. 
Stradella, 83-86. 
Strasbourg, 120. 
STUTTERHEIM, Bataille 

(TAusterlitz, 129. 
Suchet, 81. 
Sweden, 146, 192. 
Switzerland, 80, 81. 
Syria, 54. 

TAINE, Origines, 13, 102. 
Talleyrand, 66, 69, 92, 109, 158, 
160, 161, 207, 218. 



248 



INDEX 



TALLEYRAND, Corresp., 

222; Metns., 12. 
Taranto, 112. 

TARBELL, Napoleon, 12. 
Tchitchagoff, 184, 185. 
THIBAUDEAU, Mems., 102. 
Thiebault, iS, 217. 
THIEBAULT, Mems., 12. 
Thuringian forest, 132. 
Tilsit, 140, 146, 150, 157. 
Tippoo Sahib, 53. 
Tolentino, 220. 
Torres Vedras, 175. 
Toulon, ID, 15, 16, 50, 52, 80, 114, 

US- 
Trafalgar, loi, 117, 148. 
Trent, 36. 
Trieste, 169, 192. 
Troyes, 203. 
TRUCHSESS VON WALD- 

BURG, Bonaparte's reise, 222. 
Tuileries, 14, 67, 68, 103, 216, 217. 
Turin, 28, 30. 
Turkey, 49, 146, 147, 159. 
TURQUAN, Sceurs de Napoleon, 

26, 118. 
Tyrol, 35. 

Ulm, 120, 121, 124. 
United States, 48, 112, 113. 

Valenza, 30, 31. 

Valladolid, 154. 

VANDAL, Avenement de Bona- 
parte, 70 ; Napoleon et Alexandre, 
155, 188. 

Vauchamps, 202. 

Vendee, 106. 

Venetia, 149. 

Venice, 42, 43. 

Verona, 34, 36-39. 42 

Versailles, 48. 



Vicenza, 36, 37, 39. 
Victoire, rue de la, 64, 67, 68. 
Victor, 45, 139, 178, 184, 185. 
Victor Napoleon, 105. 
Vienna, 42, 123, 124, 163-167. 
" , Congress of, 210, 211, 
213, 218. 
Villeneuve, 115-117. 
Vimiero, 153. 
Vincennes, 108. 
Vistula, 135, 190. 
VITROLLES, DE, Mems., 209. 
Vitry, 200, 
Vittoria, 191, 
Voltaire, 10. 

Wagram, 167, 170. 
Warsaw, 135, 174, 191. 
WARTENBURG, see York. 
Washington, 100. 
Waterloo, 227-234. 
Wavre, 227, 229, 232. 
Wellington, 156, 166, 175, 191, 

203, 221, 224-22S, 231-234. 
WELSCHINGER, La censure, 

102 ; le divorce de N'apoleov-, 

188 ; le rot de Rome, 209. 
WEIL, le Prince Eugene, 1951, 

222. 
WERTHEIMER, 169. 
West Indies, 115, 116. 
Westphalia, 144. 
Wilna, 179, 180, 187. 
WILSON, Mems., 12, 188. 
Wittgenstein, 184, 185, 190. 
Wurmser, 35-39. 
Wurtemberg, 144. 

YORK VON WARTEN- 
BURG, Napoleon, 40. 

Zurich, 62. 



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